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CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY 


OB 


MEN  OF  BUSINESS  WHO  DID  SOMETHING 
BESIDES  MAKING  MONEY 


A  BOOK  FOR   YOUNG  AMERICANS 


BY 


JAMES  PARTON 


Wis  Wfr  V--.  A  ,.\T?  */  ■ 


/  i  •  ■ 


.  > 


BOSTON 
HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY 

New  York:  11   East  Seventeenth  Street 

<&U  tftoere'i&e  £re00",  Camfcri&oe 

1884 


fur* 


Copyright,  1S8-4, 
By  JAMES  PARTON. 


All  rights  reserved. 


*  .    .      .  .    , 


ICC  », 


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:  :  . :  •. ; 

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7%e  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Co. 


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PREFACE. 


In  this  volume  are  presented  examples  of  men 
who  shed  lustre  upon  ordinary  pursuits,  either  by 
the  superior  manner  in  which  they  exercised  them 
or  by  the  noble  use  they  made  of  the  leisure  which 
success  in  them  usually  gives.  Such  men  are  the 
nobility  of  republics.  The  American  people  were 
fortunate  in  having  at  an  early  period  an  ideal 
man  of  this  kind  in  Benjamin  Franklin,  who,  at 
the  age  of.  forty-two,  just  mid-way  in  his  life,  de- 
liberately relinquished  the  most  profitable  business 
of  its  kind  in  the  colonies  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
developing  electrical  science.  In  this,  as  in  other 
respects,  his  example  has  had  great  influence  with 
his  countrymen. 

A  distinguished  author,  who  lived  some  years  at 
Newport,  has  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  men 
who  occupy  the  villas  of  that  emerald  isle  exert 
very  little  power  compared  with  that  of  an  orator 
or  a  writer.  To  be,  he  adds,  at  the  head  of  a  nor- 
mal school,  or  to  be  a  professor  in  a  college,  is  to 


IV  PREFACE. 

have  a  sway  over  the  destinies  of  America  which 
reduces  to  nothingness  the  power  of  successful  men 
of  business. 

Being  myself  a  member  of  the  fraternity  of  writ- 
ers, I  suppose  I  ought  to  yield  a  joyful  assent  to 
such  remarks.  It  is  flattering  to  the  self-love  of 
those  who  drive  along  Bellevue  Avenue  in  a  shabby 
hired  vehicle  to  be  told  that  they  are  personages  of 
much  more  consequence  than  the  heavy  capitalist 
who  swings  by  in  a  resplendent  curricle,  drawn  by 
two  matched  and  matchless  steeds,  in  a  six-hun- 
dred dollar  harness.  Perhaps  they  are.  But  I  ad- 
vise young  men  who  aspire  to  serve  their  genera- 
tion effectively  not  to  undervalue  the  importance 
of  the  gentleman  in  the  curricle. 

One  of  the  individuals  who  has  figured  lately 
in  the  society  of  Newport  is  the  proprietor  of  an 
important  newspaper.  He  is  not  a  writer,  nor  a 
teacher  in  a  normal  school,  but  he  wields  a  con- 
siderable power  in  this  country.  Fifty  men  write 
for  the  journal  which  he  conducts,  some  of  whom 
write  to  admiration,  for  they  are  animated  by  a 
humane  and  patriotic  spirit.  The  late  lamented 
Ivory  Chamberlain  was  a  writer  whose  leading  edi- 
torials were  of  national  value.  But,  mark :  a  tele- 
gram of  ten  words  from  that  young  man  at  New- 
port, written  with  perspiring  hand  in  a  pause  of 
the  game  of  polo,  determines  without  appeal  the 


PREFACE.  V 

course  of  the  paper  in  any  crisis  of  business  or 
politics. 

I  do  not  complain  of  this  arrangement  of  things. 
I  think  it  is  just ;  I  know  it  is  unalterable. 

It  is  then  of  the  greatest  possible  importance 
that  the  men  who  control  during  their  lifetime,  and 
create  endowments  when  they  are  dead,  should 
share  the  best  civilization  of  their  age  and  country. 
It  is  also  of  the  greatest  importance  that  young 
men  whom  nature  has  fitted  to  be  leaders  should, 
at  the  beginning  of  life,  take  to  the  steep  and 
thorny  path  which  leads  at  length  to  mastership. 

Most  of  these  chapters  were  published  originally 
in  "  The  Ledger  "  of  New  York,  and  a  few  of  them 
in  "  The  Youths'  Companion  "  of  Boston,  the  largest 
two  circulations  in  the  country.  I  have  occasion- 
ally had  reason  to  think  that  they  were  of  some 
service  to  young  readers,  and  I  may  add  that  they 
represent  more  labor  and  research  than  would  be 
naturally  supposed  from  their  brevity.  Perhaps  in 
this  new  form  they  may  reach  and  influence  the 
minds  of  future  leaders  in  the  great  and  growing 
realm  of  business.  I  should  pity  any  young  man 
who  could  read  the  briefest  account  of  what  has 
been  done  in  manufacturing  towns  by  such  men  as 
John  Smedley  and  Robert  Owen  without  forming 
a  secret  resolve  to  do  something  similar  if  ever  he 
should  win  the  opportunity. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


David  Maydole,  Hammer-Maker   . 

ichabod  washburn,  wiee-maker 

Elihu  Burritt,  the  Learned  Blacksmith 

Michael  Reynolds,  Engine-Driver 

Major  Robert  Pike,  Farmer 

George  Graham,  Clock-Maker,  buried  in  "Westmin 

ster  Abbet. 

John  Harrison,  Exquisite  Watch-Maker    . 
Peter  Faneuil,  and  the  Great  Hall  he  built 
Ch,».uncey  Jerome,  Yankee  Clock-Maker    . 
Captain  Pierre  Laclede  Liguest,  Pioneer     . 

Israel  Putnam,  Farmer 

George  Flower,  Pioneer 

Edward   Coles,   Noblest  of  the   Pioneers,  and  his 

Great  Speech         

Peter  H.  Burnett,  Banker 

Gerrit  Smith 

Peter  Force,  Printer 

John  Bromfield,  Merchant     . 

Frederick  Tudor,  Ice  Exporter 

Myron  Holley,  Market-Gardeneb 

The  Founders  of  Lowell    .... 

Robert  Owen,  Cotton-Manufacturer  . 

John  Smedley,  Stocking-Manufacturer  . 

Richard  Cobden,  Calico  Printer 

Henry  Bessemer     .        .        . 

John  Bright,  Manufacturer 

Thomas  Edward,  Cobbler  and  Naturalist 


PAGE 

9 
18 
27 
36 
43 

51 

58 
65 
79 
89 
96 
104 

117 
126 
133 
140 
148 
156 
163 
170 
180 
188 
195 
206 
212 
224 


Vlll 


TABLE  OF   CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Robert  Dick,  Baker  and  Naturalist          .        .        .  232 

John  Duncan,  Weaver  and  Botanist        .        .        .  240 

James  Lackington,  Second-Hand  Bookseller    .        .  247 

Horace  Greeley's  Start 254 

James   Gordon   Bennett,  and  how  he   founded   his 

"Herald" 264 

Three  John  Walters,  and  their  Newspaper         .  275 

George  Hope 288 

Sir  Henry  Cole 294 

Charles  Summers 300 

William  B.  Astor,  House-Owner       ....  307 

Peter  Cooper 313 

Paris-Duverney,  French  Financier  ....  332 

Sir  Rowland  Hill 342 

Marie-Antoine  Careme,  French  Cook      .        .        .  349 

Wonderful  Walker,  Parson  of  all  Work        .        .  355 

Sir  Christopher  Wren 363 

Sir  John  Rennie,  Engineer 372 

Sir  Moses  Montefiore 379 

Marquis    of    Worcester,  Inventor  of  the    Steam- 

Engine 385 

An  Old  Dry-Goods  Merchant's  Recollections      .  392 


PORTRAITS. 


— — ♦ 

P.AGB 

1CHABOD  WASHBURN Frontispiece. 

CHAUNCEY  JEROME 79 

GERRIT  SMITH         .        . 133 

MYRON  HOLLEY 163 

JOHN  BRIGHT 212 

JOHN  DUNCAN 240 

PETER  COOPER 313 

SIR  ROWLAND  HILL 342 


CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 


DAVID    MAYDOLE, 

HAMMER-MAKER. 


When  a  young  man  begins  to  think  of  making 
his  fortune,  his  first  notion  usually  is  to  go  away 
from  home  to  some  very  distant  place.  At  present, 
the  favorite  spot  is  Colorado  ;  awhile  ago  it  was 
California ;  and  old  men  remember  when  Buffalo 
was  about  as  far  west  as  the  most  enterprising  per- 
son thought  of  venturing. 

It  is  not  always  a  foolish  thing  to  go  out  into 
the  world  far  beyond  the  parent  nest,  as  the  young 
birds  do  in  midsummer.  But  I  can  tell  you,  boys, 
from  actual  inquiry,  that  a  great  number  of  the 
most  important  and  famous  business  men  of  the 
United  States  struck  down  roots  where  they  were 
first  planted,  and  where  no  one  supposed  there  was 
room  or  chance  for  any  large  thing  to  grow. 

I  will  tell  you  a  story  of  one  of  these  men,  as 
I  heard  it  from  his  own  lips  some  time  ago,  in  a 
beautiful  village  where  I  lectured. 


10  CAPTATXS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

He  was  an  old  man  then :  and  a  curious  thinsr 
about  him  was  that,  although  he  was  too  deaf  to 
hear  one  word  of  a  public  address,  even  of  the 
loudest  speaker,  he  not  only  attended  church  every 
Sunday,  but  was  rarely  absent  when  a  lecture  was 
delivered. 

While  I  was  performing  on  that  occasion,  I  saw 
him  sitting  just  in  front  of  the  platform,  sleeping 
the  sleep  of  the  just  till  the  last  word  was  uttered. 

Upon  being  introduced  to  this  old  gentleman  in 
his  office,  and  learning  that  his  business  was  to 
make  hammers,  I  was  at  a  loss  for  a  subject  of  con- 
versation, as  it  never  occurred  to  me  that  there  was 
anvthino;  to  be  said  about  hammers. 

I  have  generally  possessed  a  hammer,  and  fre- 
quently inflicted  damage  on  my  fingers  therewith, 
but  I  had  supposed  that  a  hammer  was  simply  a 
hammer,  and  that  hammers  were  very  much  alike. 
At  last  I  said, — 

"  And  here  you  make  hammers  for  mankind,  Mr. 
Maydole  ?  " 

You  may  have  noticed  the  name  of  David  May- 
dole  upon  hammers.     He  is  the  man. 

"  Yes,"  said  he,  "  I  have  made  hammers  here  for 
twenty-eight  years." 

"  Well,  then,"  said  I,  shouting  in  his  best  ear,  "  by 
this  time  you  ought  to  be  able  to  make  a  pretty  good 
hammer." 

"  No,  I  can't,"  was  his  reply.  "  I  can't  make  a 
pretty  good  hammer.  I  make  the  best  hammer 
that 's  made." 


DAVID  MAY  DOLE.  11 

That  was  strong  language.  I  thought,  at  first, 
he  meant  it  as  a  joke  ;  but  I  soon  found  it  was  no 
joke  at  all. 

He  had  made  hammers  the    study  of    his  life- 

■r 

time,  and,  after  many  years  of  thoughtful  and 
laborious  experiment,  he  had  actually  produced  an 
article,  to  which,  with  all  his  knowledge  and  expe- 
rience, he  could  suggest  no  improvement. 

I  was  astonished  to  discover  how  many  points 
there  are  about  an  instrument  which  I  had  always 
supposed  a  very  simple  thing.  I  was  surprised  to 
learn  in  how  many  ways  a  hammer  can  be  bad. 

But,  first,  let  me  tell  you  how  he  came  to  think 
of  hammers. 

There  he  was,  forty  years  ago,  in  a  small  village 
of  the  State  of  Xew  York ;  no  railroad  yet,  and 
even  the  Erie  Canal  nianv  miles  distant.  He  was 
the  village  blacksmith,  his  establishment  consisting 
of  himself  and  a  boy  to  blow  the  bellows. 

He  was  a  good  deal  troubled  with  his  hammers. 
Sometimes  the  heads  would  fly  ofT.  If  the  metal 
was  too  soft,  the  hammer  would  spread  out  and 
wear  away ;  if  it  was  too  hard,  it  would  split. 

At  that  time  blacksmiths  made  their  own  ham- 
mers, and  he  knew  very  little  about  mixing  ores  so 
as  to  produce  the  toughest  iron.  But  he  was  par- 
ticularly troubled  with  the  hammer  getting  off  the 
handle,  a  mishap  which  could  be  dangerous  as  well 
as  inconvenient. 

At  this  point  of  his  narrative  the  old  gentleman 


12  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

showed  a  number  of  old  hammers,  such  as  were  in 
use  before  he  began  to  improve  the  instrument; 
and  it  was  plain  that  men  had  tried  very  hard 
before  him  to  overcome  this  difficulty. 

One  hammer  had  an  iron  rod  running  down 
through  the  handle  with  a  nut  screwed  on  at  the 
end.  Another  was  wholly  composed  of  iron,  the 
head  and  handle  being  all  of  one  piece.  There 
were  various  other  devices,  some  of  which  were  ex- 
ceedingly clumsy  and  awkward. 

At  last,  he  hit  upon  an  improvement  which  led 
to  his  being  able  to  put  a  hammer  upon  a  handle  in 
such  a  way  that  it  would  stay  there.  He  made 
what  is  called  an  adze-handled  hammer,  the  head 
being  attached  to  the  handle  after  the  manner  of 
an  adze. 

The  improvement  consists  in  merely  making  a 
longer  hole  for  the  handle  to  go  into,  by  which  de- 
vice it  has  a  much  firmer  hold  of  the  head,  and  can 
easily  be  made  extremely  tight. 

With  this  improvement,  if  the  handle  is  well  sea- 
soned and  well  wedged,  there  is  no  danger  of  the 
head  flying  off.  He  made  some  other  changes,  all 
of  them  merely  for  his  own  convenience,  without  a 
thought  of  going  into  the  manufacture  of  hammers. 

The  neighborhood  in  which  he  lived  would  have 
scarcely  required  half  a  dozen  new  hammers  per 
annum.  But  one  day  there  came  to  the  village  six 
carpenters  to  work  upon  a  new  church,  and  one  of 
these  men,  having  left  his  hammer  at  home,  came 


DAVID  MAYDOLE.  13 

to  David  Maydole's  blacksmith's  shop  to  get  one 
made. 

"Make  me  as  good  a  hammer,"  said  the  car- 
penter, "  as  you  know  how." 

That  was  touching  David  upon  a  tender  place. 

"  As  good  a  one  as  I  know  how  ? '  said  he. 
"  But  perhaps  you  don't  want  to  pay  for  as  good  a 
one  as  I  know  how  to  make." 

"  Yes,  I  do,"  replied  the  man  ;  "  I  want  a  good 
hammer." 

The  blacksmith  made  him  one  of  his  best.  It 
was  probably  the  best  hammer  that  had  ever  been 
made  in  the  world,  since  it  contained  two  or  three 
important  improvements  never  before  combined  in 
the  instrument. 

The  carpenter  was  delighted  with  it,  and  showed 
it,  with  a  good  deal  of  exultation,  to  his  five  com- 
panions ;  every  man  of  whom  came  the  next  day  to 
the  shop  and  wanted  one  just  like  it.  They  did  not 
understand  all  the  blacksmith's  notions  about  tem- 
pering and  mixing  the  metals,  but  they  saw  at  a 
glance  that  the  head  and  the  handle  were  so  united 
that  there  never  was  likely  to  be  any  divorce  be- 
tween them. 

To  a  carpenter  building  a  wooden  house,  the 
mere  removal  of  that  one  defect  was  a  boon  beyond 
price  ;  he  could  hammer  away  with  confidence,  and 
without  fear  of  seeing  the  head  of  his  hammer  leap 
into  the  next  field,  unless  stopped  by  a  comrade's 
head. 


14  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

When  all  the  six  carpenters  had  been  supplied 
with  these  improved  hammers,  the  contractor  came 
and  ordered  two  more.  He  seemed  to  think,  and, 
in  fact,  said  as  much,  that  the  blacksmith  ought  to 
make  his  hammers  a  little  better  than  those  he  had 
made  for  the  men. 

"  I  can't  make  any  better  ones,"  said  honest 
David.  "  When  I  make  a  thing,  I  make  it  as  well 
as  I  can,  no  matter  who  it  's  for." 

Soon  after,  the  store-keeper  of  the  village,  see- 
ing what  excellent  hammers  these  were,  gave  the 
blacksmith  a  magnificent  order  for  two  dozen, 
which,  in  due  time,  were  placed  upon  his  counter 
for  sale. 

At  tills  time  something  happened  to  David  May- 
dole  which  may  fairly  be  called  good  luck  ;  and  you 
will  generally  notice  events  of  the  kind  in  the  lives 
of  meritorious  men.  "  Fortune  favors  the  brave," 
is  an  old  saying,  and  good  luck  in  business  is  very 
apt  to  befall  the  man  who  could  do  very  well  with- 
out it. 

It  so  happened  that  a  New  York  dealer  in  tools, 
named  Wood,  whose  store  is  still  kept  in  Chatham 
Street,  New  York,  happened  to  be  in  the  village 
getting  orders  for  tools.  As  soon  as  his  eye  fell 
upon  those  hammers,  he  saw  their  merits,  and 
bought  them  all.  He  did  more.  He  left  a  stand- 
ing order  for  as  many  hammers  of  that  kind  as 
David  Maydole  could  make. 

That  was  the  beginning.     The  young  blacksmith 


DAVID  MAYDOLE.  15 

hired  a  man  or  two,  then  more  men,  and  made 
more  hammers,  and  kept  on  making  hammers  dur- 
ing the  whole  of  his  active  life,  employing  at  last  a 
hundred  and  fifteen  men. 

During  the  first  twenty  years,  he  was  frequently 
experimenting  with  a  view  to  improve  the  hammer. 
He  discovered  just  the  best  combination  of  ores  to 
make  his  hammers  hard  enough,  without  being  too 
hard. 

He  gradually  found  out  precisely  the  best  form 
of  every  part.  There  is  not  a  turn  or  curve  about 
either  the  handle  or  the  head  which  has  not  been 
patiently  considered,  and  reconsidered,  and  consid- 
ered again,  until  no  further  improvement  seemed 
possible.  Every  handle  is  seasoned  three  years,  or 
until  there  is  no  shrink  left  in  it. 

Perhaps  the  most  important  discovery  which  he 
made  was  that  a  perfect  tool  cannot  be  made  by 
machinery. 

Naturally,  his  first  thought,  when  he  found  his 
business  increasing,  was  to  apply  machinery  to  the 
manufacture,  and  for  some  years  several  parts  of 
the  process  were  thus  performed.  Gradually,  his 
machines  were  discarded,  and  for  many  years  be- 
fore his  retirement,  every  portion  of  the  work  was 
done  by  hand. 

Each  hammer  is  hammered  out  from  a  piece  of 
iron,  and  is  tempered  over  a  slow  charcoal  fire, 
under  the  inspection  of  an  experienced  man.  He 
looks  as  though  he  were  cooking  his  hammers  on  a 


16  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

charcoal  furnace,  and  lie  watches  them  until  the 
process  is  complete,  as  a  cook  watches  mutton 
chops. 

I  heard  some  curious  things  about  the  manage- 
ment of  this  business.  The  founder  never  did  any- 
thing to  "push"  it.  He  never  advertised.  He 
never  reduced  the  price  of  his  hammers  because 
other  manufacturers  were  doing  so. 

His  only  care,  he  said,  had  been  to  make  a  per- 
fect hammer,  to  make  just  as  many  of  them  as  peo- 
ple wanted,  and  no  more,  and  to  sell  them  at  a  fair 
price.  If  people  did  not  want  his  hammers,  he  did 
not  want  to  make  them.  If  they  did  not  want  to 
pay  what  they  were  worth,  they  were  welcome  to 
buy  cheaper  ones  of  some  one  else. 

For  his  own  part,  his  wants  were  few,  and  he  was 
ready  at  any  time  to  go  back  to  his  blacksmith's 
shop. 

The  old  gentleman  concluded  his  interesting  nar- 
ration by  making  me  a  present  of  one  of  his  ham- 
mers, which  I  now  cherish  among  my  treasures. 

If  it  had  been  a  picture,  I  should  have  had  it 
framed  and  hung  up  over  my  desk,  a  perpetual  ad- 
monition to  me  to  do  my  work  well ;  not  too  fast ; 
not  too  much  of  it ;  not  with  any  showy  false  pol- 
ish; not  letting  anything  go  till  I  had  done  all  I 
could  to  make  it  what  it  should  be. 

In  telling  this  little  story,  I  have  told  thousands 
of  stories.  Take  the  word  hammer  out  of  it,  and 
put  glue  in  its  place,  and  you  have  the  history  of 


DAVID  MAjYDOLE.  17 

Peter  Cooper.  By  putting  in  other  words,  you*  can 
make  the  true  history  of  every  great  business  in  the 
world  which  has  lasted  thirty  years. 

The  true  "  protective  system,"  of  which  we  hear 
so  much,  is  to  make  the  best  article ;  and  he  who 
does  this  need  not  buy  a  ticket  for  Colorado. 

2 


ICHABOD  WASHBUKN, 

WIRE-MAKER. 


Of  all  our  manufactures  few  have  had  a  more 
rapid  development  than  wire-making.  During  the 
last  thirty  years  the  world  has  been  girdled  by  tel- 
egraphic wires  and  cables,  requiring  an  immense 
and  continuous  supply  of  the  article.  In  New  York 
alone  two  hundred  pianos  a  week  have  been  made, 
each  containing  miles  of  wire.  There  have  been 
years  during  which  a  garment  composed  chiefly  of 
wire  was  worn  by  nearly  every  woman  in  the  land, 
even  by  the  remotest  and  poorest. 

Who  has  supplied  all  these  millions  of  miles  of 
wire  ?  A  large  part  of  the  answer  to  this  question 
is  given  when  we  pronounce  the  name  at  the  head 
of  this  article,  Ichabod  Washburn.  In  the  last 
years  of  his  life  he  had  seven  hundred  men  at 
Worcester  making  wire,  the  product  of  whose  labor 
was  increased  a  hundred  fold  by  machinery  which 
he  had  invented  or  adapted. 

It  is  curious  to  note  how  he  seemed  to  stumble 
into  the  business  just  in  the  nick  of  time.  I  say, 
seemed;  but,  in  truth,  he  had  been  prepared  for 


ICHABOD    WASHBURN.  19 

success  in  it  by  a  long  course  of  experience  and 
training.  He  was  a  poor  widow's  son,  born  on 
the  coast  of  Massachusetts,  a  few  miles  from  Plym- 
outh Rock ;  his  father  having  died  in  early  man- 
hood, when  this  boy  and  a  twin  brother  were  two 
months  old.  His  mother,  suddenly  left  with  three 
little  children,  and  having  no  property  except  the 
house  in  which  she  lived,  supported  her  family  by 
weaving,  in  which  her  children  from  a  very  early 
age  could  give  her  some  help.  She  kept  them  at 
school,  however,  during  part  of  the  winter,  and  in- 
stilled into  their  minds  good  principles.  When 
this  boy  was  nine  years  of  age  she  was  obliged,  as 
the  saying  was,  "  to  put  him  out  to  live  "  to  a  mas- 
ter five  miles  from  her  house. 

On  his  way  to  his  new  fyonie  he  was  made  to  feel 
the  difference  between  a  hard  master  and  a  kind 
mother.  Having  a  quick  intelligent  mind,  he  ques- 
tioned the  man  concerning  the  objects  they  passed. 
At  length  the  boy  saw  a  windmill,  and  he  asked 
what  that  was. 

"  Don't  ask  me  so  many  questions,  boy,"  an- 
swered the  man,  in  a  harsh,  rough  voice. 

The  little  fellow  was  silenced,  and  he  vividly  re- 
membered the  event,  the  tone,  and  the  scene,  to  old 
age.  His  employer  was  a  maker  of  harness,  car- 
riages, and  trunks,  and  it  was  the  boy's  business  to 
take  care  of  a  horse  and  two  cows,  light  fires,  chop 
wood,  run  errands,  and  work  in  the  shop.  He 
never  forgot  the  cold  winter  mornings,  and  the  loud 


20  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

voice  of  his  master  rousing  him  from  sleep  to  make 
the  fire,  and  go  out  to  the  barn  and  get  the  milk- 
ing done  before  daylight.  His  sleeping-place  wa  \ 
a  loft  above  the  shop  reached  by  a  ladder.  Being 
always  a  timid  boy,  he  suffered  extremely  from  fear 
in  the  dark  and  lonely  garret  of  a  building  where 
no  one  else  slept,  and  to  which  he  had  to  grope  his 
way  alone. 

What  would  the  dainty  boys  of  the  present  time 
think  of  going  to  mill  on  a  frosty  morning  astride 
of  a  bag  of  corn  on  the  horse's  back,  without  stock- 
ings or  shoes  and  with  trousers  half  way  up  to  the 
knees  ?  On  one  occasion  the  little  Ichabod  was  so 
thoroughly  chilled  that  he  had  to  stop  at  a  house  to 
get  warm,  and  the  good  woman  took  pity  on  him, 
made  him  put  on  a  pai»  of  long  black  stockings, 
and  a  pair  of  her  own  shoes.  Thus  equipped,  with 
his  long  black  legs  extending  far  out  of  his  short 
trousers,  and  the  woman's  shoes  lashed  to  his  feet, 
he  presented  a  highly  ludicrous  appearance,  and 
one  which,  he  thought,  might  have  conveyed  a  val- 
uable hint  to  his  master.  In  the  daytime  he  was 
usually  employed  in  the  shop  making  harnesses,  a 
business  in  which  he  became  expert.  He  served 
this  man  five  years,  or  until  he  was  fourteen  years 
of  age,  when  he  made  a  complete  harness  for  one 
of  his  cousins,  which  rendered  excellent  service  for 
many  years,  and  a  part  of  it  lasted  almost  as  long 
as  the  maker. 

Thus,  at  fourteen,  he  had  completed  his  first  ap- 


ICHABOD   WASHBURN.  21 

prenticeship,  and  had  learned  his  first  trade.  The 
"War  of  1812  having  given  a  sudden  start  to  manu- 
factures in  this  country,  he  went  to  work  in  a  cot- 
ton factory  for  a  while,  where,  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life,  he  saw  complicated  machinery.  Like  a 
true  Yankee  as  he  was,  he  was  strongly  attracted 
by  it,  and  proposed  to  learn  the  machinist's  trade. 
His  guardian  opposed  the  scheme  strongly,  on  the 
ground  that,  in  all  probability,  by  the  time  he  had 
learned  the  trade  the  country  would  be  so  full  of 
factories  that  there  would  be  no  more  machinery 
required. 

Thus  discouraged,  he  did  the  next  best  thing : 
he  went  apprentice  to  the  blacksmith's  trade,  near 
Worcester,  where  he  was  destined  to  spend  the  rest 
of  his  life.  He  was  sixteen  years  of  age  when  he 
began  this  second  apprenticeship ;  but  he  was  still 
one  of  the  most  timid  and  bashful  of  lads.  In  a 
fragment  of  autobiography  found  among  his  pa- 
pers after  his  death  he  says  :  — 

"I  arrived  at  Worcester  about  one  o'clock,  at 
Syke's  tavern  where  we  were  to  dine;  but  the  sight 
of  the  long  table  in  the  dining-room  so  overpowered 
my  bashful  spirit  that  I  left  the  room  and  went 
into  the  yard  without  dinner  to  wait  till  the  stage 
was  ready." 

On  reaching  his  new  home,  eighty  miles  from 
his  mother's  house,  he  was  so  overcome  by  home- 
sickness that,  the  first  night,  he  sobbed  himself  to 
sleep.    Soon  he  became  interested  in  his  shop  and  in 


22  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

his  work,  made  rapid  progress,  and  approved  him- 
self a  skillful  hand.  Having  been  brought  up  to  go 
to  church  every  Sunday,  he  now  hired  a  seat  in  the 
gallery  of  one  of  the  churches  at  fifty  cents  a  year, 
which  he  earned  in  over-time  by  forging  pot-hooks. 
Every  cent  of  his  spending  money  was  earned  in 
similar  ways.  Once  he  made  six  toasting-irons, 
and  carried  them  to  Worcester,  where  he  sold  them 
for  a  dollar  and  a  quarter  each,  taking  a  book  in 
part  payment.  When  his  sister  was  married  he 
made  her  a  wedding  present  of  a  toasting-iron. 
Nor  was  it  an  easy  matter  for  an  apprentice  then 
to  do  work  in  over-time,  for  he  was  expected  to 
labor  in  his  master's  service  from  sunrise  to  sunset 
in  the  summer,  and  from  sunrise  to  nine  o'clock  in 
the  winter. 

On  a  bright  day  in  August,  1818,  his  twentieth 
birthday,  he  was  out  of  his  time,  and,  according  to 
the  custom  of  the  period,  he  celebrated  the  joyful 
event  by  a  game  of  ball !  In  a  few  months,  having 
saved  a  little  money,  he  went  into  business  as  a 
manufacturer  of  ploughs,  in  which  he  had  some  lit- 
tle success.  But  still  yearning  to  know  more  of  ma- 
chinery he  entered  upon  what  we  may  call  his  third 
apprenticeship,  in  an  armory  near  Worcester,  where 
he  soon  acquired  skill  enough  to  do  the  finer  parts 
of  the  work.  Then  he  engaged  in  the  manufac- 
ture of  lead  pipe,  in  which  he  attained  a  moderate 
success. 

At  length,  in  1831,  being  then  thirty-three  years 


ICHABOD    WASHBURN.  23 

old,  lie  began  the  business  of  making  wire,  in  which 
he  continued  during  the  remainder  of  his  active 
life.  The  making  of  wire,  especially  the  finer  and 
better  kinds,  is  a  nice  operation.  Until  Ichabod 
Washburn  entered  into  the  business,  wire  of  good 
quality  was  not  made  in  the  United  States;  and 
there  was  only  one  house  in  Great  Britain  that  had 
the  secret  of  making  the  steel  wire  for  pianos,  and 
they  had  had  a  monopoly  of  the  manufacture  for 
about  eighty  years. 

Wire  is  made  by  drawing  a  rod  of  soft,  hot  iron 
through  a  hole  which  is  too  small  for  it.  If  a  still 
smaller  sized  wire  is  desired,  it  is  drawn  through 
a  smaller  hole,  and  this  process  is  repeated  until 
the  required  size  is  attained.  Considerable  power 
is  needed  to  draw  the  wire  through,  and  the  hole 
through  which  it  is  drawn  is  soon  worn  larger. 
The  first  wire  machine  that  Washburn  ever  saw 
was  arranged  with  a  pair  of  self  -  acting  pincers 
which  drew  a  foot  of  wire  and  then  had  to  let  go 
and  take  a  fresh  hold.  By  this  machine  a  man 
could  make  fifty  pounds  of  coarse  wire  in  a  day. 
He  soon  improved  this  machine  so  that  the  pincers 
drew  fifteen  feet  without  letting  go ;  and  by  this 
improvement  alone  the  product  of  one  man's  la- 
bor was  increased  about  eleven  times.  A  good 
workman  coidd  make  five  or  six  hundred  pounds  a 
day  by  it.  By  another  improvement  which  Wash- 
burn adopted  the  product  was  increased  to  twenty- 
five  hundred  pounds  a  day. 


24  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

He  was  now  in  his  element.  He  always  had  a 
partner  to  manage  the  counting-room  part  of  the 
business,  which  he  disliked. 

"  I  never,"  said  he,  "  had  taste  or  inclination  for 
it,  always  preferring  to  be  among  the  machinery, 
doing  the  work  and  handling  the  tools  I  was  used 
to,  though  oftentimes  at  the  expense  of  a  smutty 
face  and  greasy  hands." 

His  masterpiece  in  the  way  of  invention  was  his 
machinery  for  making  steel  wire  for  pianos,  —  a 
branch  of  the  business  which  was  urged  upon  him 
by  the  late  Jonas  Chickering,  piano  manufacturer, 
of  Boston.  The  most  careless  glance  at  the  strings 
of  a  piano  shows  us  that  the  wire  must  be  exquis- 
itely tempered  and  most  thoroughly  wrought,  in 
order  to  remain  in  tune,  subjected  as  they  are  to  a 
steady  pull  of  many  tons.  Washburn  experimented 
for  years  in  perfecting  his  process,  and  he  was 
never  satisfied  until  he  was  able  to  produce  a  wire 
which  he  could  honestly  claim  to  be  the  best  in  the 
world.  He  had  amazing  success  in  his  business. 
At  one  time  he  was  making  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  yards  of  crinoline  wire  every  day.  His 
whole  daily  product  was  seven  tons  of  iron  wire, 
and  five  tons  of  steel  wire. 

This  excellent  man,  in  the  midst  of  a  success 
which  would  have  dazzled  and  corrupted  some  men, 
retained  all  the  simplicity,  the  modesty,  and  the 
generosity  of  his  character.  He  felt,  as  he  said,  no- 
where so  much  at  home  as  among  his  own  machin- 


ICHABOD   WASHBURN.  25 

ery,  surrounded  by  thoughtful  mechanics,  dressed 
like  them  for  work,  and  possibly  with  a  black 
smudge  upon  his  face.  In  his  person,  however,  he 
was  scrupulously  clean  and  nice,  a  hater  of  tobacco 
and  all  other  polluting  things  and  lowering  influ- 
ences. 

Rev.  H.  T.  Cheever,  the  editor  of  his  "Memo- 
rials," mentions  also  that  he  remained  to  the  end 
of  his  life  in  the  warmest  sympathy  with  the  natu- 
ral desires  of  the  workingman.  He  was  a  collector 
of  facts  concerning  the  condition  of  workingmen 
everywhere,  and  for  many  years  cherished  a  project 
of  making  his  own  business  a  cooperative  one. 

"  He  believed,"  remarks  Mr.  Cheever,  "  that  the 
skilled  and  faithful  manual  worker,  as  well  as  the 
employer,  was  entitled  to  a  participation  in  the  net 
proceeds  of  business,  over  and  above  his  actual 
wages.  He  held  that  in  this  country  the  entire 
people  are  one  great  working  class,  working  with 
brains,  or  hands,  or  both,  who  should  therefore  act 
in  harmony  —  the  brain  -  workers  and  the  hand- 
workers —  for  the  equal  rights  of  all,  without  dis- 
tinction of  color,  condition,  or  religion.  Holding 
that  capital  is  accumulated  labor,  and  wealth  the 
creation  of  capital  and  labor  combined,  he  thought 
it  to  be  the  wise  policy  of  the  large  capitalists  and 
corporations  to  help  in  the  process  of  elevating  and 
advancing  labor  by  a  proffered  interest." 

These  were  the  opinions  of  a  man  who  had  had 
long  experience  in  all  the  grades,  from  half-frozen 
apprentice  to  millionaire  manufacturer. 


26  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

He  died  in  1868,  aged  seventy-one  years,  leaving 
an  immense  estate ;  which,  however,  chiefly  con- 
sisted in  his  wire-manufactory.  He  had  made  it  a 
principle  not  to  accumulate  money  for  the  sake  of 
money,  and  he  gave  away  in  his  lifetime  a  large 
portion  of  his  revenue  every  year.  He  bequeathed 
to  charitable  associations  the  sum  of  four  hundred 
and  twenty-four  thousand  dollars,  which  was  dis- 
tributed among  twenty-one  objects.  His  great  be- 
quests were  to  institutions  of  practical  and  homely 
benevolence:  to  the  Home  for  Aged  Women  and 
Widows,  one  hundred  thousand  dollars ;  to  found 
a  hospital  and  free  dispensary,  the  same  amount ; 
smaller  sums  to  industrial  schools  and  mission 
schools. 

It  was  one  of  his  fixed  convictions  that  boys  can- 
not be  properly  fitted  for  life  without  being  both 
taught  and  required  to  use  their  hands,  as  well  as 
their  heads,  and  it  was  long  his  intention  to  found 
some  kind  of  industrial  college.  Finding  that 
something  of  the  kind  was  already  in  existence  at 
Worcester,  he  made  a  bequest  to  it  of  one  hundred 
and  ten  thousand  dollars.  The  institution  is  called 
the  Worcester  County  Free  Institute  of  Industrial 
Science. 


ELIHU  BUEPvITT, 

THE   LBAKNED   BLACKSMITH. 


Elihu  Burritt,  with  whom  we  have  all  been 
familiar  for  many  years  as  the  Learned  Blacksmith, 
was  born  in  1810  at  the  beautiful  town  of  Xew 
Britain,  in  Connecticut,  about  ten  miles  from  Hart- 
ford. He  was  the  youngest  son  in  an  old-fashioned 
family  of  ten  children.  His  father  owned  and  cul- 
tivated a  small  farm  ;  but  spent  the  winters  at  the 
shoemaker's  bench,  according  to  the  rational  custom 
of  Connecticut  in  that  day.  When  Elihu  was  six- 
teen years  of  age,  his  father  died  and  the  lad  soon 
after  apprenticed  himself  to  a  blacksmith  in  his 
native  village. 

He  was  an  ardent  reader  of  books  from  childhood 
up ;  and  he  was  enabled  to  gratify  this  taste  by 
means  of  a  small  village  library,  which  contained 
several  books  of  history,  of  which  he  was  naturally 
fond.  This  boy,  however,  was  a  shy,  devoted  stu- 
dent, brave  to  maintain  what  he  thought  right,  but 
so  bashful  that  he  was  known  to  hide  in  the  cellar 
when  his  parents  were  going  to  have  company. 

As  his  father's  long  sickness  had  kept  him  out  of 


28  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

school  for  some  time,  lie  was  the  more  earnest  to 
learn  during  his  apprenticeship ;  particularly  math- 
ematics, since  he  desired  to  become,  among  other 
things,  a  good  surveyor.  He  was  obliged  to  work 
from  ten  to  twelve  hours  a  day  at  the  forge ;  but 
while  he  was  blowing  the  bellows  he  employed  his 
mind  in  doing  sums  in  his  head.  His  biographer 
gives  a  specimen  of  these  calculations  which  he 
wrought  out  without  making  a  single  figure  :  — 

"  How  many  yards  of  cloth,  three  feet  in  width, 
cut  into  strips  an  inch  wide,  and  allowing  half  an 
inch  at  each  end  for  the  lap,  would  it  require  to 
reach  from  the  centre  of  the  earth  to  the  surface, 
and  how  much  would  it  all  cost  at  a  shilling  a 
yard  ?  " 

He  would  go  home  at  night  with  several  of  these 
sums  done  in  his  head,  and  report  the  residts  to 
an  elder  brother  who  had  worked  his  way  through 
Williams  College.  His  brother  would  perform  the 
calculations  upon  a  slate,  and  usually  found  his 
answers  correct. 

"When  he  was  about  half  through  his  apprentice- 
ship he  suddenly  took  it  into  his  head  to  learn 
Latin,  and  began  at  once  through  the  assistance  of 
the  same  elder  brother.  In  the  evenings  of  one 
winter  he  read  the  JEneid  of  Virgil ;  and,  after 
going  on  for  a  while  with  Cicero  and  a  few  other 
Latin  authors,  he  began  Greek.  During  the  win- 
ter months  he  was  obliged  to  spend  every  hour  of 
daylight  at  the  forge,  and  even  in  the  summer  his 


ELIHU  BURRITT.  29 

leisure  minutes  were  few  and  far  between.  But  lie 
carried  his  Greek  grammar  in  his  hat,  and  often 
found  a  chance,  while  he  •  was  waiting  for  a  large 
piece  of  iron  to  get  hot,  to  open  his  book  with  his 
black  fingers,  and  go  through  a  pronoun,  an  adjec- 
tive or  part  of  a  verb,  without  being  noticed  by  his 
fellow-apprentices. 

So  he  worked  his  way  until  he  was  out  of  his 
time,  when  he  treated  himself  to  a  whole  quarter's 
schooling  at  his  brother's  school,  where  he  studied 
mathematics,  Latin  and  other  languages.  Then  he 
went  back  to  the  forge,  studying  hard  in  the  even- 
ings at  the  same  branches,  until  he  had  saved 
a  little  money ;  when  he  resolved  to  go  to  New 
Haven,  and  spend  a  winter  in  study.  It  was  far 
from  his  thoughts,  as  it  was  from  his  means,  to 
enter  Yale  College ;  but  he  seems  to  have  had  an 
idea  that  the  very  atmosphere  of  the  college  would 
assist  him.  He  was  still  so  timid  that  he  deter- 
mined to  work  his  way  without  asking  the  least  as- 
sistance from  a  professor  or  tutor. 

He  took  lodgings  at  a  cheap  tavern  in  New 
Haven,  and  began  the  very  next  morning  a  course 
of  heroic  study.  As  soon  as  the  fire  was  made  in 
the  sitting-room  of  the  inn,  which  was  at  half-past 
four  in  the  morning,  he  took  possession,  and  studied 
German  until  breakfast-time,  which  was  half -past 
seven.  When  the  other  boarders  had  gone  to  busi- 
ness,  he  sat  down  to  Homer's  Iliad,  of  which  he 
knew  nothing,  and  with  only  a  dictionary  to  help 
him. 


30  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

"  The  proudest  moment  of  my  life,"  he  once 
wrote,  "was  when  I  had  first  gained  the  full  mean- 
ing of  the  first  fifteen  lines  of  that  noble  work.  I 
took  a  short  triumphal  walk  in  favor  of  that  ex- 
ploit." 

Just  before  the  boarders  came  back  for  their 
dinner,  he  put  away  all  his  Greek  and  Latin  books, 
and  took  up  a  work  in  Italian,  because  it  was  less 
likely  to  attract  the  notice  of  the  noisy  crowd.  Af- 
ter dinner  he  fell  again  upon  his  Greek,  and  in  the 
evening  read  Spanish  until  bed-time.  In  this  way 
he  lived  and  labored  for  three  months,  a  solitary 
student  in  the  midst  of  a  community  of  students ; 
his  mind  imbued  with  the  grandeurs  and  dignity  of 
the  past,  while  eating  flapjacks  and  molasses  at  a 
poor  tavern. 

Returning  to  his  home  in  New  Britain,  he  ob- 
tained the  mastership  of  an  academy  in  a  town  near 
by :  but  he  could  not  bear  a  life  wholly  sedentary  ; 
and,  at  the  end  of  a  year,  abandoned  his  school  and 
became  what  is  called  a  "  runner  "  for  one  of  the 
manufacturers  of  New  Britain.  This  business  he 
pursued  until  he  was  about  twenty-five  years  of 
age,  when,  tired  of  wandering,  he  came  home  again, 
and  set  up  a  grocery  and  provision  store,  in  which 
he  invested  all  the  money  he  had  saved.  Soon 
came  the  commercial  crash  of  1837,  and  he  was  in- 
volved in  the  widespread  ruin.  He  lost  the  whole 
of  his  capital,  and  had  to  begin  the  world  anew. 

He  resolved  to  return  to  his  studies  in  the  Ian- 


ELIHU  BURRITT.  31 

guages  of  the  East.  Unable  to  buy  or  find  the 
necessary  books,  he  tied  up  his  effects  in  a  small 
handkerchief,  and  walked  to  Boston,  one  hundred 
miles  distant,  hoping  there  to  find  a  ship  in  which 
he  coidd  work  his  passage  across  the  ocean,  and 
collect  oriental  works  from  port  to  port.  He  could 
not  find  a  berth.  He  turned  back,  and  walked  as 
far  as  Worcester,  where  he  found  work,  and  found 
something  else  which  he  liked  better.  There  is  an 
Antiquarian  Society  at  Worcester,  with  a  large 
and  peculiar  library,  containing  a  great  number  of 
books  in  languages  not  usually  studied,  such  as 
the  Icelandic,  the  Russian,  the  Celtic  dialects,  and 
others.  The  directors  of  the  Society  placed  all 
their  treasures  at  his  command,  and  he  now  di- 
vided his  time  between  hard  study  of  languages 
and  hard  labor  at  the  forge.  To  show  how  he 
passed  his  days,  I  will  copy  an  entry  or  two  from 
a  private  diary  he  then  kept :  — 

"  Monday,  June  18.  Headache  ;  40  pages  Cu- 
vier's  Theory  of  the  Earth  ;  64  pages  French  ;  11 
hours  forging. 

"  Tuesday,  June  19.  60  lines  Hebrew  ;  30  pages 
French  ;  10  pages  of  Cuvier  ;  8  lines  Syriac ;  10 
lines  Danish  ;  10  lines  Bohemian ;  9  lines  Polish  ; 
15  names  of  stars ;  10  hours  forging. 

"  Wednesday,  June  20.  25  lines  Hebrew ;  8 
lines  Syriac ;  11  hours  forging." 

He  spent  five  years  at  Worcester  in  such  labors 
as  these.     When  work  at  his  trade  became  slack, 


32  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

or  when  he  had  earned  a  little  more  money  than 
usual,  he  would  spend  more  time  in  the  library; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  when  work  in  the  shop  was 
pressing,  he  could  give  less  time  to  study.  After  a 
while,  he  began  to  think  that  he  might  perhaps 
earn  his  subsistence  in  part  by  his  knowledge  of 
languages,  and  thus  save  much  waste  of  time  and 
vitality  at  the  forge.  He  wrote  a  letter  to  William 
Lincoln,  of  Worcester,  who  had  aided  and  en- 
couraged him ;  and  in  this  letter  he  gave  a  short 
history  of  his  life,  and  asked  whether  he  could  not 
find  employment  in  translating  some  foreign  work 
into  English.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  so  much  struck 
with  his  letter  that  he  sent  it  to  Edward  Everett, 
and  he  having  occasion  soon  after  to  address  a  con- 
vention of  teachers,  read  it  to  his  audience  as  a 
wonderful  instance  of  the  pursuit  of  knowledge 
under  difficulties.  Mr.  Everett  prefaced  it  by  say- 
ing that  such  a  resolute  purpose  of  improvement 
against  such  obstacles  excited  his  admiration,  and 
even  his  veneration. 

"  It  is  enough,"  he  added,  "  to  make  one  who 
has  good  opportunities  for  education  hang  his  head 
in  shame." 

All  this,  including  the  whole  of  the  letter,  was 
published  in  the  newspapers,  with  eulogistic  com- 
ments, in  which  the  student  was  spoken  of  as  the 
Learned  Blacksmith.  The  bashful  scholar  was 
overwhelmed  with  shame  at  finding  himself  sud- 
denly famous.      However,  it  led  to   his  entering 


ELIHU  BURRITT.  38 

upon  public  life.  Lecturing  was  then  coming  into 
vogue,  and  he  was  frequently  invited  to  the  plat- 
form. Accordingly,  he  wrote  a  lecture,  entitled 
"  Application  and  Genius,"  in  which  he  endeavored 
to  show  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  genius,  but 
that  all  extraordinary  attainments  are  the  results 
of  application.  After  delivering  this  lecture  sixty 
times  in  one  season,  he  went  back  to  his  forge  at 
"Worcester,  mingling  study  with  labor  in  the  old 
way. 

On  sitting  down  to  write  a  new  lecture  for  the 
following  season,  on  the  "  Anatomy  of  the  Earth," 
a  certain  impression  was  made  upon  his  mind, 
which  changed  the  current  of  his  life.  Studying 
the  globe,  he  was  impressed  with  the  need  that  one 
nation  has  of  other  nations,  and  one  zone  of  another 
zone  ;  the  tropics  producing  what  assuages  life  in 
the  northern  latitudes,  and  northern  lands  furnish- 
ing the  means  of  mitigating  tropical  discomforts. 
He  felt  that  the  earth  was  made  for  friendliness 
and  cooperation,  not  for  fierce  competition  and 
bloody  wars. 

Under  the  influence  of  these  feelings,  his  lecture 
became  an  eloquent  plea  for  peace,  and  to  this  ob- 
ject his  after  life  was  chiefly  devoted.  The  dispute 
with  England  upon  the  Oregon  boundary  induced 
him  to  go  to  England,  with  the  design  of  traveling 
on  foot  from  village  to  village,  preaching  peace, 
and  exposing  the  horrors  and  folly  of  war.  His 
addresses  attracting  attention,  he  was   invited  to 


84  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

speak  to  larger  bodies,  and,  in  short,  he  spent 
twenty  years  of  his  life  as  a  lecturer  upon  peace, 
organizing  Peace  Congresses,  advocating  low  uni- 
form rates  of  ocean  postage,  and  spreading  abroad 
among  the  people  of  Europe  the  feeling  which  is- 
sued, at  length,  in  the  arbitration  of  the  dispute 
between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  ;  an 
event  which  posterity  will,  perhaps,  consider  the 
most  important  of  this  century.  He  heard  Victor 
Hugo  say  at  the  Paris  Congress  of  1850  :  — 

"  A  day  will  come  when  a  cannon  will  be  ex- 
hibited in  public  museums,  just  as  an  instrument 
of  torture  is  now,  and  people  will  be  amazed  that 
such  a  thing  could  ever  have  been." 

If  he  had  sympathetic  hearers,  he  produced  upon 
them  extraordinary  effects.  Nathaniel  P.  Rogers, 
one  of  the  heroes  of  the  Anti-slavery  agitation, 
chanced  to  hear  him  in  Boston  in  1845  on  his  fa- 
vorite subject  of  Peace.     He  wrote  soon  after :  — 

"  I  had  been  introduced  to  Elihu  Burritt  the  day 
before,  and  was  much  interested  in  his  original  ap- 
pearance, and  desirous  of  knowing  him  further.  I 
had  not  formed  the  highest  opinion  of  his  liber- 
ality. But  on  entering  the  hall  my  friends  and  I 
soon  forgot  everything  but  the  speaker.  The  dim- 
lit  hall,  the  handful  audience,  the  contrast  of  both 
with  the  illuminated  chapel  and  ocean  multitude 
assembled  overhead,  bespeak  painfully  the  estima- 
tion in  which  the  great  cause  of  peace  is  held  in 
Christendom.     I  wish  all  Christendom  could  have 


ELIHU  BURRITT.  35 

Heard  EliHu  Burritt's  speecH.  One  unbroken,  un- 
abated stream  it  was  of  profound  and  lofty  and 
original  eloquence.  I  felt  riveted  to  my  seat  till 
He  finished  it.  There  was  no  oratory  about  it,  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  that  word  ;  no  graces  of  elo- 
cution. It  was  mighty  thoughts  radiating  off  from 
His  heated  mind  like  the  sparkles  from  the  glowing 
steel  on  his  own  anvil,  getting  on  as  they  come  out 
what  clothing  of  language  they  might,  and  thus 
having  on  the  most  appropriate  and  expressive 
imaginable.  Xot  a  waste  word,  nor  a  wanting  one. 
And  he  stood  and  delivered  himself  in  a  simplicity 
and  earnestness  of  attitude  and  gesture  belonging 
to  his  manly  and  now  honored  and  distinguished 
trade.  I  admired  the  touch  of  rusticity  in  His  ac- 
cent, amid  His  truly  splendid  diction,  which  be- 
tokened, as  well  as  the  vein  of  solid  sense  that  ran 
entirely  through  His  speech,  that  He  Had  not  been 
educated  at  the  college.  I  thought  of  ploughman 
Burns  as  I  listened  to  blacksmith  Burritt.  Oh ! 
what  a  dignity  and  beauty  labor  imparts  to  learn- 

ing." 

EliHu  Burritt  spent  the  last  years  of  His  life 
upon  a  little  farm  which  He  Had  contrived  to  buy 
in  His  native  town.  He  was  never  married,  but 
lived  with  His  sister  and  her  daughters.  He  was 
not  so  very  much  richer  in  worldly  goods  than 
when  he  Had  started  for  Boston  with  His  property 
wrapped  in  a  small  Handkerchief.  He  died  in 
March,  1879,  aged  sixty-nine  years. 


MICHAEL  REYNOLDS, 

ENGINE-DRIVER. 


Literature  in  these  days  throws  light  into 
many  an  out-of-the-way  corner.  It  is  rapidly  mak- 
ing us  all  acquainted  with  one  another.  A  loco- 
motive engineer  in  England  has  recently  written  a 
book  upon  his  art,  in  order,  as  he  says,  "  to  commu- 
nicate that  species  of  knowledge  which  it  is  neces- 
sary for  an  engine-driver  to  possess  who  aspires  to 
take  high  rank  on  the  footplate ! '  He  magnifies 
his  office,  and  evidently  regards  the  position  of  an 
engineer  as  highly  enviable. 

"It  is  very  natural"  he  remarks,  "for  those 
who  are  unacquainted  with  locomotive  driving  to 
admire  the  life  of  an  engine-man,  and  to  imagine 
how  very  pleasant  it  must  be  to  travel  on  the  en- 
gine. But  they  do  not  think  of  the  gradations  by 
which  alone  the  higher  positions  are  reached ;  they 
see  only  on  the  express  engine  the  picturesque  side 
of  the  result  of  many  years  of  patient  observation 
and  toil." 

This  passage  was  to  me  a  revelation ;  for  I  had 
looked  upon  an  engineer  and  his   assistant  with 


MICHAEL  REYNOLDS.  37 

some  compassion  as  well  as  admiration,  and  have 
often  thought  how  extremely  disagreeable  it  must 
be  to  travel  on  the  engine  as  they  do.  Not  so 
Michael  Reynolds,  the  author  of  this  book,  who 
has  risen  from  the  rank  of  fireman  to  that  of  lo- 
comotive inspector  on  the  London  and  Brighton 
railroad.  He  tells  us  that  a  model  engineer  "is 
possessed  by  a  master  passion  —  a  passion  for  the 
monarch  of  speed."  Such  an  engineer  is  distin- 
guished, also,  for  his  minute  knowledge  of  the  en- 
gine, and  nothing  makes  him  happier  than  to  get 
some  new  light  upon  one  of  its  numberless  parts. 
So  familiar  is  he  with  it  that  his  ear  detects  the 
slightest  variation  in  the  beats  of  the  machinery, 
and  can  tell  the  shocks  and  shakes  which  are  caused 
by  a  defective  road  from  those  which  are  due  to  a 
defective  engine.  Even  his  nose  acquires  a  pecul- 
iar sensitiveness.  In  the  midst  of  so  much  heat,  he 
can  detect  that  winch  arises  from  friction  before 
any  mischief  has  been  done.  At  every  rate  of 
speed  he  knows  just  how  his  engine  ought  to  sound, 
shake,  and  smell. 

Let  us  see  how  life  passes  on  a  locomotive,  and 
what  is  the  secret  of  success  in  the  business  of  an 
engineer.  The  art  of  arts  in  engine-driving  is  the 
management  of  the  fire.  Every  reader  is  aware 
that  taking  care  of  a  fire  is  something  in  which  few 
persons  become  expert.  Most  of  us  think  that  we 
ourselves  possess  the  knack  of  it,  but  not  another 
individual  of  our  household  agrees  with  us.     Now, 


38  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

a  man  born  with  a  genius  for  managing  a  locomo- 
tive is  one  who  has  a  high  degree  of  the  fire-making 
instinct.  Mr.  Reynolds  distinctly  says  that  a  man 
may  be  a  good  mechanic,  may  have  even  built  loco- 
motives, and  yet,  if  he  is  not  a  good  "  shovel-man," 
if  he  does  not  know  how  to  manage  his  fire,  he  will 
never  rise  to  distinction  in  his  profession.  The 
great  secret  is  to  build  the  fire  so  that  the  whole 
mass  of  fuel  will  ignite  and  burn  freely  without  the 
use  of  the  blower,  and  so  bring  the  engine  to  the 
train  with  a  fire  that  will  last.  When  we  see  an 
engine  blowing  off  steam  furiously  at  the  beginning 
of  the  trip,  we  must  not  be  surprised  if  the  train 
reaches  the  first  station  behind  time,  since  it  indi- 
cates a  fierce,  thin  fire,  that  has  been  rapidly  ignited 
by  the  blower.  An  accomplished  engineer  backs 
his  engine  to  the  train  without  any  sign  of  steam  or 
smoke,  but  with  a  fire  so  strong  and  sound  that  he 
can  make  a  run  of  fifty  miles  in  an  hour  without 
touching  it. 

The  engineer,  it  appears,  if  he  has  an  important 
run  to  make,  comes  to  his  engine  an  hour  before 
starting.  His  first  business,  on  an  English  rail- 
road, is  to  read  the  notices,  posted  up  in  the  engine 
house,  of  any  change  in  the  condition  of  the  road 
requiring  special  care.  His  next  duty  is  to  inspect 
his  engine  in  every  part:  first,  to  see  if  there  is 
water  enough  in  the  boiler,  and  that  the  fire  is  pro- 
ceeding properly;  then,  that  he  has  the  necessary 
quantity  of  water  and  coal  in  the  tender.     He  next 


MICHAEL  REYNOLDS.  39 

gets  into  the  pit  under  his  engine,  with  the  proper 
tools,  and  inspects  every  portion  of  it,  trying  every 
nut  and  pin  within  his  reach  from  below.  Then  he 
walks  around  the  engine,  and  particularly  notices 
if  the  oiling  apparatus  is  exactly  adjusted.  Some 
parts  require,  for  example,  four  drops  of  oil  every 
minute,  and  he  must  see  that  the  apparatus  is  set 
so  as  to  yield  just  that  quantity.  He  is  also  to 
look  into  his  tool-box,  and  see  if  every  article  is  in 
its  place.  Mr.  Reynolds  enumerates  twenty -two 
objects  which  a  good  engineer  will  always  have 
within  his  reach,  such  as  fire  implements  of  various 
kinds,  machinist  tools,  lamps  of  several  sorts,  oiling 
vessels,  a  quantity  of  flax  and  yarn,  copper  wire,  a 
copy  of  the  rules  and  his  time-table ;  all  of  which 
are  to  be  in  the  exact  place  designed  for  them,  so 
that  they  can  be  snatched  in  a  moment. 

One  of  the  chief  virtues  of  the  engineer  and  his 
companion,  the  fireman,  is  cne  which  we  are  not 
accustomed  to  associate  with  their  profession ;  and 
that  is  cleanliness.  On  this  point  our  author  grows 
eloquent,  and  he  declares  that  a  clean  engineer  is 
almost  certain  to  be  an  excellent  one  in  every  par- 
ticular. The  men  upon  a  locomotive  cannot,  it  is 
true,  avoid  getting  black  smudge  upon  their  faces. 
The  point  is  that  both  the  men  and  their  engines 
should  be  clean  in  all  the  essential  particulars,  so 
that  all  the  faculties  of  the  men  and  all  the  devices 
of  the  engine  shall  work  with  ease  and  certainty. 

"There  is   something,"   he    remarks,    "so  very 


40  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

degrading  about  dirt,  that  even  a  poor  beast  highly 
appreciates  clean  straw.  Cleanliness  hath  a  charm 
that  hideth  a  multitude  of  faults,  and  it  is  not  dif- 
ficult to  trace  a  connection  between  habitual  clean- 
liness and  a  respect  for  general  order,  for  punctual- 
ity, for  truthfulness,  for  all  placed  in  authority." 

Do  you  mark  that  sentence,  reader  ?  The  spirit 
of  the  Saxon  race  speaks  in  those  lines.  You  ob- 
serve that  this  author  ranks  among  the  virtues 
"  a  respect  for  all  placed  in  authority."  That,  of 
course,  may  be  carried  too  far;  nevertheless,  the 
strong  races,  and  the  worthy  men  of  all  races,  do 
cherish  a  respect  for  lawful  authority.  A  good 
soldier  is  proud  to  salute  his  officer. 

On  some  English  railroads  both  engineers  and 
engines  are  put  to  tests  much  severer  than  upon 
roads  elsewhere.  Between  Holyhead  and  Chester, 
a  distance  of  ninety-seven  miles,  the  express  trains 
run  without  stopping,  and  they  do  this  with  so  little 
strain  that  an  engine  performed  the  duty  every  day 
for  several  years.  A  day's  work  of  some  crack  en- 
gineers is  to  run  from  London  to  Crewe  and  back 
again  in  ten  hours,  a  distance  of  three  hundred  and 
thirty  miles,  stopping  only  at  Rugby  for  three  min- 
utes on  each  trip.  There  are  men  who  perform  this 
service  every  working  day  the  whole  year  through, 
without  a  single  delay.  This  is  a  very  great  achieve- 
ment, and  can  only  be  done  by  engineers  of  the 
greatest  skill  and  steadiness.  It  was  long,  indeed, 
^  before  any  man  could  do  it,  and  even  now  there  are 


MICHAEL  REYNOLDS.  41 

engineers  who  dare  not  take  the  risk.  On  the 
Hudson  Kiver  road  some  of  the  trains  run  from 
New  York  to  Poughkeepsie,  eighty  miles,  without 
stopping,  but  not  every  engineer  could  do  it  at 
first,  and  very  often  a  train  stopped  at  Peekskill  to 
take  in  water.  The  water  is  the  difficulty,  and  the 
good  engineer  is  one  who  wastes  no  water  and  no 
coal. 

Mr.  Reynolds  enumerates  all  the  causes  of  acci- 
dents from  the  engine,  many  of  which  cannot  be 
understood  by  the  uninitiated.  As  we  read  them 
over,  and  see  in  how  many  ways  an  engine  can  go 
wrong,  we  wonder  that  a  train  ever  arrives  at  its 
journey's  end  in  safety.  At  the  conclusion  of  this 
formidable  list,  the  author  confesses  that  it  is  in- 
complete, and  notifies  young  engineers  that  nobody 
can  teach  them  the  innermost  secrets  of  the  en- 
gine. Some  of  these,  he  remarks,  require  "  years  of 
study,"  and  even  then  they  remain  in  some  degree 
mysterious.  Nevertheless,  he  holds  out  to  ambi- 
tion the  possibility  of  final  success,  and  calls  upon 
young  men  to  concentrate  all  their  energies  upon 
the  work. 

"  Self-reliance,"  he  says,  "  is  a  grand  element  of 
character:  it  has  won  Olympic  crowns  and  Isth- 
mian laurels ;  it  confers  kinship  with  men  who 
have  vindicated  their  divine  right  to  be  held  in  the 
world's  memory.  Let  the  master  passion  of  the  soul 
evoke  undaunted  energy  in  pursuit  of  the  attain- 
ment of  one  end,  aiming  for  the  highest  in  the  spirit 


42  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

of  the  lowest,  prompted  by  the  burning  thought  of 
reward,  which  sooner  or  later  will  come." 

We  perceive  that  Michael  Reynolds  possesses  one 
of  the  prime  requisites  of  success :  he  believes  in 
the  worth  and  dignity  of  his  vocation ;  and  in  writ- 
ing this  little  book  he  has  done  something  to  elevate 
it  in  the  regard  of  others.  To  judge  from  some  of 
his  directions,  I  should  suppose  that  engineers  in 
England  are  not,  as  a  class,  as  well  educated  or  as 
intelligent  as  ours.  Locomotive  engineers  in  the 
United  States  rank  very  high  in  intelligence  and 
respectability  of  character. 


MAJOR   ROBERT  PIKE, 

FARMER. 


I  advise  people  who  desire,  above  all  things,  to 
have  a  comfortable  time  in  the  world  to  be  good 
conservatives.  Do  as  other  people  do,  think  as 
other  people  think,  swim  with  the  current  —  that 
is  the  way  to  glide  pleasantly  down  the  stream  of 
life.  But  mark,  O  you  lovers  of  inglorious  ease, 
the  men  who  are  remembered  with  honor  after  they 
are  dead  do  not  do  so !  They  sometimes  breast  the 
current,  and  often  have  a  hard  time  of  it,  with  the 
water  splashing  back  in  their  faces,  and  the  easy- 
going crowd  jeering  at  them  as  they  pant  against 
the  tide. 

This  valiant,  stalwart  Puritan,  Major  Robert 
Pike,  of  Salisbury,  Massachusetts,  who  was  born  in 
1616,  the  year  in  which  Shakespeare  died,  is  a  case 
in  point.  Salisbury,  in  the  early  day,  was  one  of  the 
frontier  towns  of  Massachusetts,  lying  north  of  the 
Merrimac  River,  and  close  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean. 
For  fifty  years  it  was  a  kind  of  outpost  of  that  part 
of  the  State.  It  lay  right  in  the  path  by  which  the 
Indians  of  Maine  and  Canada  were  accustomed  to 


44  CAPTAINS   OF  INDUSTRY. 

slink  clown  along  the  coast,  often  traveling  on  the 
sands  of  the  beaches,  and  burst  upon  the  settle- 
ments. During*  a  long  lifetime  Major  Pike  was  a 
magistrate  and  personage  in  that  town,  one  of  the 
leading  spirits,  upon  whom  the  defense  of  the  fron- 
tier chiefly  devolved. 

Others  were  as  brave  as  he  in  fighting  Indians. 
Many  a  man  could  acquit  himself  valiantly  in  battle 
who  would  not  have  the  courage  to  differ  from  the 
public  opinion  of  his  community.  But  on  several 
occasions,  when  Massachusetts  was  wrong,  Major 
Pike  was  right ;  and  he  had  the  courage  sometimes 
to  resist  the  current  of  opinion  when  it  was  swollen 
into  a  raging  torrent.  He  opposed,  for  example, 
the  persecution  of  the  Quakers,  which  is  such  a  blot 
upon  the  records  both  of  New  England  and  old 
England.  We  can  •imagine  what  it  must  have  cost 
to  go  against  this  j^olicy  by  a  single  incident,  which 
occurred  in  the  year  1659  in  Eobert  Pike's  own 
town  of  Salisbury. 

©n  a  certain  day  in  August,  Thomas  Macy  was 
caught  in  a  violent  storm  of  rain,  and  hurried  home 
drenched  to  the  skin.  He  found  in  his  house  four 
wayfarers,  who  had  also  come  in  for  shelter.  His 
wife  being  sick  in  bed,  no  one  had  seen  or  spoken 
to  them.  They  asked  him  how  far  it  was  to  Casco 
Bay.  From  their  dress  and  demeanor  he  thought 
they  might  be  Quakers,  and,  as  it  was  unlawful  to 
harbor  persons  of  that  sect,  he  asked  them  to  go  on 
their  way,  since  he  feared  to  give  offense  in  enter- 


MAJOR  ROBERT  PIKE.  45 

taining  them.  As  soon  as  the  worst  of  the  storm 
was  over,  they  left,  and  he  never  saw  them  again. 
They  were  in  his  house  about  three  quarters  of  an 
hour,  during  which  he  said  very  little  to  them,  hav- 
ing himself  come  home  wet,  and  found  his  wife 
sick. 

He  was  summoned  to  Boston,  forty  miles  distant, 
to  answer  for  this  offense.  Being  unable  to  walk, 
and  not  rich  enough  to  buy  a  horse,  he  wrote  to  the 
General  Court,  relating  the  circumstances,  and  ex- 
plaining his  non-appearance.  He  was  fined  thirty 
shillings,  and  ordered  to  be  admonished  by  the  gov- 
ernor. He  paid  his  fine,  received  his  reprimand, 
and  removed  to  the  island  of  Nantucket,  of  which 
he  was  the  first  settler,  and  for  some  time  the  only 
white  inhabitant. 

During  this  period  of  Quaker  persecution,  Major 
Pike  led  the  opposition  to  it  in  Salisbury,  until,  at 
length,  William  Penn  prevailed  upon  Charles  II. 
to  put  an  end  to  it  in  all  his  dominions.  If  the 
history  of  that  period  had  not  been  so  carefully 
recorded  in  official  documents,  we  could  scarcely 
believe  to  what  a  point  the  principle  of  authority 
was  then  carried.  One  of  the  laws  which  Robert 
Pike  dared  openly  to  oppose  made  it  a  misde- 
meanor for  any  one  to  exhort  on  Sunday  who  had 
not  been  regularly  ordained.  He  declared  that  the 
men  who  voted  for  that  law  had  broken  their  oaths, 
for  they  had  sworn  on  taking  their  seats  to  enact 
nothing  against  the  just   liberty  of   Englishmen. 


46  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

For  saying  this  lie  was  pronounced  guilty  of  "  de- 
faming ':  the  legislature,  and  he  was  sentenced  to 
be  disfranchised,  disabled  from  holding  any  public 
office,  bound  to  good  behavior,  and  fined  twenty 
marks,  equal  to  about  two  hundred  dollars  in  our 
present  currency. 

Petitions  were  presented  to  the  legislature  asking 
the  remission  of  the  severe  sentence.  But  even 
this  was  regarded  as  a  criminal  offense,  and  pro- 
ceedings were  instituted  against  every  signer.  A 
few  acknowledged  that  the  signing  was  an  offense, 
and  asked  the  forgiveness  of  the  court,  but  all  the 
rest  were  required  to  give  bonds  for  their  appear- 
ance to  answer. 

Another  curious  incident  shows  the  rigor  of  the 
government  of  that  day.  According  to  the  Puritan 
law,  Sunday  began  at  sunset  on  Saturday  evening, 
and  ended  at  sunset  on  Sunday  evening.  During 
the  March  thaw  of  1680,  Major  Pike  had  occasion 
to  go  to  Boston,  then  a  journey  of  two  days.  Fear- 
ing that  the  roads  were  about  to  break  up,  he  deter- 
mined to  start  on  Sunday  evening,  get  across  the 
Merrimac,  which  was  then  a  matter  of  difficulty 
during  the  melting  of  the  ice,  and  make  an  early 
start  from  the  other  side  of  the  river  on  Monday 
morning.  The  gallant  major  being,  of  course,  a 
member  of  the  church,  and  very  religious,  went  to 
church  twice  that  Sunday.  Now,  as  to  what  fol- 
lowed, I  will  quote  the  testimony  of  an  eye-witness, 
his  traveling  companion  :  — 


MAJOR  ROBERT  PIKE.  47 

"  I  do  further  testify  that,  though  it  was  pretty 
late  ere  Mr.  Burrows  (the  clergyman)  ended  his 
afternoon's  exercise,  yet  did  the  major  stay  in  his 
daughter's  house  till  repetition  of  both  forenoon 
and  afternoon  sermons  was  over,  and  the  duties  of 
the  day  concluded  with  prayer ;  and,  after  a  little 
stay,  to  be  sure  the  sun  was  down,  then  we  mounted, 
and  not  till  then.  The  sun  did  indeed  set  in  a 
cloud,  and  after  we  were  mounted,  I  do  remember 
the  major  spake  of  lightening  up  where  the  sun  set ; 
but  I  saw  no  sun." 

A  personal  enemy  of  the  major's  brought  a 
charge  against  him  of  violating  the  holy  day  by 
starting  on  his  journey  before  the  setting  of  the 
sun.  The  case  was  brought  for  trial,  and  several 
witnesses  were  examined.  The  accuser  testified 
that  "he  did  see  Major  Robert  Pike  ride  by  his 
house  toward  the  ferry  upon  the  Lord's  day  when 
the  sun  was  about  half  an  hour  high."  Another 
witness  confirmed  this.     Another  testified  :  — 

"The  sun  did  indeed  set  in  a  cloud,  and,  a  little 
after  the  major  .was  mounted,  there  appeared  a 
light  where  the  sun  went  down,  which  soon  van- 
ished again,  possibly  half  a  quarter  of  an  hour." 

Nevertheless,  there  were  two  witnesses  who  de- 
clared that  the  sun  was  not  down  when  the  major 
mounted,  and  so  this  worthy  gentleman,  then  sixty- 
four  years  of  age,  a  man  of  honorable  renown  in 
the  commonwealth,  was  convicted  of  "profaning 
the  Sabbath,"  fined  ten  shillings,  and  condemned 


48  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

to  pay  costs  and  fees,  which  were  eight  shillings 
more.  He  paid  his  fine,  and  was  probably  more 
careful  during  the  rest  of  his  life  to  mount  on  Sun- 
day evenings  by  the  almanac. 

The  special  glory  of  this  man's  life  was  his  stead- 
fast and  brave  opposition  to  the  witchcraft  mania 
of  1692.  This  deplorable  madness  was  in  New 
England  a  mere  transitory  panic,  from  which  the 
people  quickly  recovered ;  but  while  it  lasted  it  al- 
most silenced  opposition,  and  it  required  genuine 
heroism  to  lift  a  voice  against  it.  No  country  of 
Europe  was  free  from  the  delusion  during  that 
century,  and  some  of  its  wisest  men  were  carried 
away  by  it.  The  eminent  judge,  Sir  William 
Blackstone,  in  his  "  Commentaries,"  published  in 
1765,  used  this  language :  — 

"  To  deny  the  existence  of  witchcraft  is  to  flatly 
contradict  the  revealed  word  of  God,  and  the  thing 
itself  is  a  truth  to  which  every  nation  has  in  its 
turn  borne  testimony." 

This  was  the  conviction  of  that  age,  and  hun- 
dreds of  persons  were  executed  for  practicing  witch- 
craft. In  Massachusetts,  while  the  mania  lasted, 
fear  blanched  every  face  and  haunted  every  house. 

It  was  the  more  perilous  to  oppose  the  trials 
because  there  was  a  mingling  of  personal  malevo- 
lence in  the  fell  business,  and  an  individual  who 
objected  was  in  danger  of  being  himself  accused. 
No  station,  no  age,  no  merit,  was  a  sufficient  pro- 
tection.    Mary  Bradbury,  seventy-five  years  of  age, 


MAJOR  ROBERT  PIKE.  49 

the  wife  of  one  of  the  leading  men  of  Salisbury,  a 
woman  of  singular  excellence  and  dignity  of  char- 
acter, was  among  the  convicted.  She  was  a  neigh- 
bor of  Major  Pike's,  and  a  life-long  friend. 

In  the  height  of  the  panic  he  addressed  to  one  of 
the  judges  an  argument  against  the  trials  for  witch- 
craft which  is  one  of  the  most  ingenious  pieces  of 
writing  to  be  found  among  the  documents  of  that 
age.  The  peculiarity  of  it  is  that  the  author  argues 
on  purely  Biblical  grounds;  for  he  accepted  the 
whole  Bible  as  authoritative,  and  all  its  parts  as 
equally  authoritative,  from  Genesis  to  Revelation. 
His  main  point  was  that  witchcraft,  whatever  it 
may  be,  cannot  be  certainly  proved  against  any  one. 
The  eye,  he  said,  may  be  deceived ;  the  ear  may  be  ; 
and  all  the  senses.  The  devil  himself  may  take  the 
shape  and  likeness  of  a  person  or  thing,  when  it  is 
not  that  person  or  thing.  The  truth  on  the  subject, 
he  held,  lay  out  of  the  range  of  mortal  ken. 

"  And  therefore,"  he  adds,  "  I  humbly  conceive 
that,  in  such  a  difficulty,  it  may  be  more  safe,  for 
the  present,  to  let  a  guilty  person  live  till  further 
discovery  than  to  put  an  innocent  person  to  death." 

Happily  this  mania  speedily  passed,  and  troubled 
New  England  no  more.  Robert  Pike  lived  many 
years  longer,  and  died  in  1706,  when  he  was  nearly 
ninety-one  years  of  age.  He  was  a  farmer,  and 
gained  a  considerable  estate,  the  whole  of  which  he 
gave  away  to  his  heirs  before  his  death.  The  house 
in  which  he  lived  is  still  standing  in  the  town  of 


50  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

Salisbury,  and  belongs  to  bis  descendants ;  for  on 
that  healthy  coast  men,  families,  and  houses  decay 
very  slowly.  James  S.  Pike,  one  of  his  descend- 
ants, the  well-remembered  "J.  S.  P."  of  the  "  Trib- 
une's "  earlier  day,  and  now  an  honored  citizen  of 
Maine,  has  recently  written  a  little  book  about  this 
ancient  hero  who  assisted  to  set  his  fellow-citizens 
right  when  they  were  going  wrong. 


GEORGE   GRAHAM, 

CLOCK-MAKER,  BURIED  IN  WESTMINSTER  ABBEY. 


It  is  supposed  that  the  oldest  clock  in  existence 
is  one  in  the  ancient  castle  of  Dover,  on  the  south- 
ern coast  of  England,  bearing  the  date,  1348.  It 
has  been  running,  therefore,  five  hundred  and  thir- 
ty-six years.  Other  clocks  of  the  same  century 
exist  in  various  parts  of  Europe,  the  works  of  which 
have  but  one  hand,  which  points  the  hour,  and  re- 
quire winding  every  twenty-four  hours.  From  the 
fact  of  so  many  large  clocks  of  that  period  having 
been  preserved  in  whole  or  in  part,  it  is  highly 
probable  that  the  clock  was  then  an  old  invention. 

But  how  did  people  measure  time  during  the 
countless  ages  that  rolled  away  before  the  invention 
of  the  clock?  The  first  time-measurer  was  prob- 
ably a  post  stuck  in  the  ground,  the  shadow  of 
which,  varying  in  length  and  direction,  indicated 
the  time  of  day,  whenever  the  sun  was  not  obscured 
by  clouds.  The  sun-dial,  which  was  an  improve- 
ment upon  this,  was  known  to  the  ancient  Jews  and 
Greeks.  The  ancient  Chinese  and  Egyptians  pos- 
sessed an  instrument  called  the  Clepsydra  (water- 


52  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

stealer),  which  was  merely  a  vessel  full  of  water 
with  a  small  hole  in  the  bottom  by  which  the  water 
slowly  escaped.  There  were  marks  in  the  inside  of 
the  vessel  which  showed  the  hour.  An  improve- 
ment upon  this  was  made  about  two  hundred  and 
thirty-five  years  before  Christ  by  an  Egyptian, 
who  caused  the  escaping  water  to  turn  a  system  of 
wheels ;  and  the  motion  was  communicated  to  a  rod 
which  pointed  to  the  hours  upon  a  circle  resem- 
bling a  clock-face.  Similar  clocks  were  made  in 
which  sand  was  used  instead  of  water.  The  hour- 
glass was  a  time-measurer  for  many  centuries  in 
Europe,  and  all  the  ancient  literatures  abound  in 
allusions  to  the  rapid,  unobserved,  running  away 
of  its  sands. 

The  next  advance  was  the  invention  of  the  wheel- 
and-weight-clock,  such  as  has  been  in  use  ever  since. 
The  first  instrument  of  this  kind  may  have  been 
made  by  the  ancients  ;  but  no  clear  allusion  to  its 
existence  has  been  discovered  earlier  than  996, 
when  Pope  Sylvester  II.  is  known  to  have  had  one 
constructed.  It  was  Christian  Huygens,  the  famous 
Dutch  philosopher,  who  applied,  in  1658,  the  pen- 
dulum to  the  clock,  and  thus  led  directly  to  those 
more  refined  and  subtle  improvements,  which  ren- 
der our  present  clocks  and  watches  among  the  least 
imperfect  of  all  human  contrivances. 

George  Graham,  the  great  London  clock-maker 
of  Queen  Anne's  and  George  the  First's  time,  and 
one  of  the  most  noted  improvers  of  the  clock,  was 


GEORGE   GRAHAM.  53 

born  in  1675.  After  spending  the  first  thirteen 
years  of  his  life  in  a  village  in  the  North  of  Eng- 
land, he  made  his  way  to  London,  an  intelligent 
and  well-bred  Quaker  boy ;  and  there  he  was  so 
fortunate  as  to  be  taken  as  an  apprentice  by  Toni- 
pion,  then  the  most  celebrated  clock-maker  in  Eng- 
land, whose  name  is  still  to  be  seen  upon  ancient 
watches  and  clocks.  Tompion  was  a  most  exqui- 
site mechanic,  proud  of  his  work  and  jealous  of  his 
name.  He  is  the  Tompion  who  figured  in  Far- 
quhar's  play  of  "The  Inconstant;"  and  Prior  men- 
tions him  in  his  "  Essay  on  Learning,"  where  he 
says  that  Tompion  on  a  watch  or  clock  was  proof 
positive  of  its  excellence.  A  person  once  brought 
him  a  watch  to  repair,  upon  which  his  name  had 
been  fraudulently  engraved.  He  took  up  a  ham- 
mer and  smashed  it,  and  then  selecting  one  of  his 
own  watches,  gave  it  to  the  astonished  customer, 
saying :  "  Sir,  here  is  a  watch  of  my  making." 

Graham  was  worthy  to  be  the  apprentice  of  such 
a  master,  for  he  not  only  showed  intelligence,  skill, 
and  fidelity,  but  a  happy  turn  for  invention.  Tom- 
pion became  warmly  attached  to  him,  treated  him 
as  a  son,  gave  him  the  full  benefit  of  his  skill  and 
knowledge,  took  him  into  partnership,  and  finally 
left  him  sole  possessor  of  the  business.  For  nearly 
half  a  century  George  Graham,  Clock-maker,  was 
one  of  the  best  known  signs  in  Fleet  Street,  and 
the  instruments  made  in  his  shop  were  valued  in  all 
the  principal  countries  of  Europe.    The  great  clock 


54  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

at  Greenwich  Observatory,  made  by  him  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  ago,  is  still  in  use  and  could 
hardly  now  be  surpassed  in  substantial  excellence. 
The  mural  arch  in  the  same  establishment,  used  for 
the  testing  of  quadrants  and  other  marine  instru- 
ments, was  also  his  work.  When  the  French  gov- 
ernment sent  Maupertuis  within  the  polar  circle, 
to  ascertain  the  exact  figure  of  the  earth,  it  was 
George  Graham,  Clock-maker  of  Fleet  Street,  who 
supplied  the  requisite  instruments. 

But  it  was  not  his  excellence  as  a  mechanic  that 
causes  his  name  to  be  remembered  at  the  present 
time.  He  made  two  capital  inventions  in  clock- 
machinery  which  are  still  universally  used,  and  will 
probably  never  be  superseded.  It  was  a  common 
complaint  among  clock  -  makers,  when  he  was  a 
young  man,  that  the  pendulum  varied  in  length 
according  to  the  temperature,  and  consequently 
caused  the  clock  to  go  too  slowly  in  hot  weather, 
and  too  fast  in  cold.  Thus,  if  a  clock  went  cor- 
rectly at  a  temperature  of  sixty  degrees,  it  would 
lose  three  seconds  a  day  if  the  temperature  rose  to 
seventy,  and  three  more  seconds  a  day  for  every 
additional  ten  degrees  of  heat.  Graham  first  en- 
deavored to  rectify  this  inconvenience  by  making 
the  pendulum  of  several  different  kinds  of  metal, 
which  was  a  partial  remedy.  But  the  invention  by 
which  he  overcame  the  difficulty  completely,  con- 
sisted in  employing  a  column  of  mercury  as  the 
"  bob  "  of  the  pendulum.     The  hot  weather,  which 


GEORGE   GRAHAM.  55 

lengthened  the  steel  rods,  raised  the  column  of 
mercury,  and  so  brought  the  centre  of  oscillation 
higher.  If  the  column  of  mercury  was  of  the  right 
length,  the  lengthening  or  the  shortening  of  the 
pendulum  was  exactly  counterbalanced,  and  the 
variation  of  the  clock,  through  changes  of  the  tem- 
perature, almost  annihilated. 

This  was  a  truly  exquisite  invention.  The  clock 
he  himself  made  on  this  plan  for  Greenwich,  after 
being  in  use  a  century  and  a  half,  requires  atten- 
tion not  oftener  than  once  in  fifteen  months.  Some 
important  discoveries  in  astronomy  are  due  to  the 
exactness  with  which  Graham's  clock  measures  time. 
He  also  invented  what  is  called  the  "  dead  escape- 
ment," still  used,  I  believe,  in  all  clocks  and 
watches,  from  the  commonest  five-dollar  watch  to 
the  most  elaborate  and  costly  regulator.  Another 
pretty  invention  of  his  was  a  machine  for  showing 
the  position  and  motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies, 
which  was  exceedingly  admired  by  our  grandfathers. 
Lord  Orrery  having  amused  himself  by  copying 
this  machine,  a  French  traveler  who  saw  it  com- 
plimented the  maker  by  naming  it  an  Orrery,  which 
has  led  many  to  suppose  it  to  have  been  an  inven- 
tion of  that  lord.  It  now  appears,  however,  that 
the  true  inventor  was  the  Fleet  Street  clock-maker. 

The  merits  of  this  admirable  mechanic  procured 
for  him,  while  he  was  still  little  more  than  a  young 
man,  the  honor  of  being  elected  a  member  of  the 
Eoyal  Society,  the  most  illustrious  scientific  body 


56  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

in  the  world.  And  a  very  worthy  member  he 
proved.  If  the  reader  will  turn  to  the  Transac- 
tions of  that  learned  society,  he  may  find  in  them 
twenty-one  papers  contributed  by  George  Graham. 
He  was,  however,  far  from  regarding  himself  as  a 
philosopher,  but  to  the  end  of  his  days  always 
styled  himself  a  clock-maker. 

They  still  relate  an  anecdote  showing  the  con- 
fidence he  had  in  his  work.  A  gentleman  who 
bought  a  watch  of  him  just  before  departing  for 
India,  asked  him  how  far  he  could  depend  on  its 
keeping  the  correct  time. 

"Sir,"  replied  Graham,  "it  is  a  watch  which  I 
have  made  and  regulated  myself ;  take  it  with  you 
wherever  you  please.  If  after  seven  years  you  come 
back  to  see  me,  and  can  tell  me  there  has  been  a 
difference  of  five  minutes,  I  will  return  you  your 
money." 

Seven  years  passed,  and  the  gentleman  returned. 

"  Sir,"  said  he,  "  I  bring  you  back  your  watch." 

"  I  remember,"  said  Graham,  "  our  conditions.' 
Let  me  see  the  watch.  Well,  what  do  you  com- 
plain of?" 

"  Why,"  was  the  reply,  "  I  have  had  it  seven 
years,  and  there  is  a  difference  of  more  than  five 
minutes." 

"  Indeed !  "  said  Graham.  "  In  that  case  I  return 
you  your  money." 

"I  would  not  part  with  my  watch,"  said  the 
gentleman,  "  for  ten  times  the  sum  I  paid  for  it." 


GEORGE   GRAHAM.  57 

"And  I,"  rejoined  Graham,  "would  not  break 
my  word  for  any  consideration." 

He  insisted  on  taking  back  the  watch,  which 
ever  after  he  used  as  a  regulator. 

This  is  a  very  good  story,  and  is  doubtless  sub- 
stantially true;  but  no  watch  was  ever  yet  made 
which  has  varied  as  little  as  five  minutes  in  seven 
years.  Readers  may  remember  that  the  British 
government  once  offered  a  reward  of  twenty  thou- 
sand pounds  sterling  for  the  best  chronometer,  and 
the  prize  was  awarded  to  Harrison  for  a  chronom- 
eter which  varied  two  minutes  in  a  sailing  voyage 
from  England  to  Jamaica  and  back. 

George  Graham  died  in  1751,  aged  seventy-six 
years,  universally  esteemed  as  an  ornament  of  his 
age  and  country.  In  Westminster  Abbey,  among 
the  tombs  of  poets,  philosophers,  and  statesmen, 
may  be  seen  the  graves  of  the  two  clock-makers, 
master  and  apprentice,  Tompion  and  Graham. 


JOHN  HAKRISON, 

EXQUISITE  WATCH-MAKER. 


He  was  first  a  carpenter,  and  the  son  of  a  car- 
penter, born  and  reared  in  English  Yorkshire,  in 
a  village  too  insignificant  to  appear  on  any  but  a 
county  map.  Faulby  is  about  twenty  miles  from 
York,  and  there  John  Harrison  was  born  in  1693, 
when  William  and  Mary  reigned  in  England.  He 
was  thirty-five  years  of  age  before  he  was  known 
beyond  his  own  neighborhood.  He  was  noted  there, 
however,  for  being  a  most  skillful  workman.  There 
is,  perhaps,  no  trade  in  which  the  degrees  of  skill 
are  so  far  apart  as  that  of  carpenter.  The  differ- 
ence is  great  indeed  between  the  clumsy-fisted  fel- 
low who  knocks  together  a  farmer's  pig-pen,  and 
the  almost  artist  who  makes  a  dining  -  room  floor 
equal  to  a  piece  of  mosaic.  Dr.  Franklin  speaks 
with  peculiar  relish  of  one  of  his  young  comrades 
in  Philadelphia,  as  "  the  most  exquisite  joiner  "  he 
had  ever  known. 

It  was  not  only  in  carpentry  that  John  Harrison 
reached  extraordinary  skill  and  delicacy  of  stroke. 
He  became  an  excellent  machinist,  and  was  par- 


JOHN  HARRISON.  59 

ticularly  devoted  from  an  early  age  to  clock-work. 
He  was  a  student  also  in  the  science  of  the  day.  A 
contemporary  of  Xewton,  he  made  himself  capable 
of  understanding  the  discoveries  of  that  great  man, 
and  of  following  the  Transactions  of  the  Royal  So- 
ciety in  mathematics,  astronomy,  and  natural  phi- 
losophy. 

Clock-work,  however,  was  his  ruling  taste  as  a 
workman,  for  many  years,  and  he  appears  to  have 
set  before  him  as  a  task  the  making  of  a  clock  that 
should  surpass  all  others.  He  says  in  one  of  his 
pamphlets  that,  in  the  year  1726,  when  he  was 
thirty-three  years  of  age,  he  finished  two  large  pen- 
dulum clocks  which,  being  placed  in  different  houses 
some  distance  apart,  differed  from  each  other  only 
one  second  in  a  month.  He  also  says  that  one  of 
his  clocks,  which  he  kept  for  his  own  use,  the  going 
of  which  he  compared  with  a  fixed  star,  varied  from 
the  true  time  only  one  minute  in  ten  years. 

Modern  clock-makers  are  disposed  to  deride  these 
extraordinary  claims,  particularly  those  of  Paris  and 
Switzerland.  T\"e  know,  however,  that  John  Har- 
rison was  one  of  the  most  perfect  workmen  that 
ever  lived,  and  I  find  it  difficult  to  believe  that  a 
man  whose  works  were  so  true  coidd  be  false  in  his 
words. 

In  perfecting  these  amateur  clocks  he  made  a 
beautiful  invention,  the  principle  of  which  is  still 
employed  in  other  machines  besides  clock-work. 
Like  George  Graham,  he  observed  that  the  chief 


60 


CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 


cause  of  irregularity  in  a  well-uiade  clock  was  the 
varying  length  of  the  pendulum,  which  in  warm 
weather  expanded  and  became  a  little  longer,  and 
in  cold  weather  became  shorter.  He  remedied 
this  by  the  invention  of  what  is  often  called  the 
gridiron  pendulum,  made  of  several  bars  of  steel 
and  brass,  and  so  arranged  as  to  neutralize  and 
correct  the  tendency  of  the  pendulum  to  vary  in 
length.  Brass  is  very  sensitive  to  changes  of  tem- 
perature, steel  much  less  so  ;  and  hence  it  is  not 
difficult  to  arrange  the  pendulum  so  that  the  long 
exterior  bars  of  steel  shall  very  nearly  curb  the 
expansion  and  contraction  of  the  shorter  brass 
ones. 

While  he  was  thus  perfecting  himself  in  obscur- 
ity, the  great  world  was  in  movement  also,  and  it 
was  even  stimulating  his  labors,  as  well  as  giving 
them  their  direction. 

The  navigation  of  the  ocean  was  increasing  every 
year  in  importance,  chiefly  through  the  growth  of 
the  American  colonies  and  the  taste  for  the  rich 
products  of  India.  The  art  of  navigation  was  still 
imperfect.  In  order  that  the  captain  of  a  ship 
at  sea  may  know  precisely  where  he  is,  he  must 
know  two  things :  how  far  he  is  from  the  equator, 
and  how  far  he  is  from  a  certain  known  place,  say 
Greenwich,  Paris,  Washington.  Being  sure  of 
those  two  things,  he  can  take  his  chart  and  mark 
upon  it  the  precise  spot  where  his  ship  is  at  a  given 
moment.    Then  he  knows  how  to  steer,  and  all  else 


JOHN  HARRISON.  61 

that  lie  needs  to  know  in  order  to  pursue  his  course 
with  confidence. 

When  John  Harrison  was  a  young  man,  the  art 
of  navigation  had  so  far  advanced  that  the  distance 
from  the  equator,  or  the  latitude,  could  be  as- 
certained with  certainty  by  observation  of  the  heav- 
enly bodies.  One  great  difficulty  remained  to  be 
overcome  —  the  finding  of  the  longitude.  This 
was  done  imperfectly  by  means  of  a  watch  which 
kept  Greenwich  time  as  near  as  possible.  Every 
fine  day  the  captain  could  ascertain  by  an  observa- 
tion of  the  sun  just  when  it  was  twelve  o'clock.  If, 
on  looking  at  this  chronometer,  he  found  that  by 
Greenwich  time  it  was  quarter  past  two,  he  could 
at  once  ascertain  his  distance  from  Greenwich,  or 
in  other  words,  his  longitude. 

But  the  terrible  question  was,  how  near  right  is 
the  chronometer  ?  A  variation  of  a  very  few  min- 
utes would  make  a  difference  of  more  than  a  hun- 
dred miles. 

To  this  day,  no  perfect  time-keeper  has  ever  been 
made.  From  an  early  period,  the  governments  of 
commercial  nations  were  solicitous  to  find  a  way  of 
determining  the  longitude  that  would  be  sufficiently 
correct.  Thus,  the  King  of  Spain,  in  1598,  offered 
a  reward  of  a  thousand  crowns  to  any  one  who  should 
discover  an  approximately  correct  method.  Soon 
after,  the  government  of  Holland  offered  ten  thou- 
sand florins.  In  1714  the  English  government 
took  hold  of  the   matter,  and  offered  a  series  of 


62  CAPTAINS   OF  INDUSTRY. 

dazzling  prizes  :  Five  thousand  pounds  for  a  chro- 
nometer that  would  enable  a  ship  six  months  from 
home  to  get  her  longitude  within  sixty  miles  ;  seven 
thousand  five  hundred  pounds,  if  within  forty 
miles ;  ten  thousand  pounds  if  within  thirty  miles. 
Another  clause  of  the  bill  offered  a  premium  of 
twenty  thousand  pounds  for  the  invention  of  any 
method  whatever,  by  means  of  which  the  longitude 
could  be  determined  within  thirty  miles.  The  bill 
appears  to  have  been  drawn  somewhat  carelessly ; 
but  the  substance  of  it  was  sufficiently  plain,  name- 
ly, that  the  British  Government  was  ready  to  make 
the  fortune  of  any  man  who  should  enable  navi- 
gators to  make  their  way  across  the  ocean  in  a 
straight  line  to  their  desired  port. 

Two  years  after,  the  Regent  of  France  offered  a 
prize  of  a  hundred  thousand  francs  for  the  same 
object. 

All  the  world  went  to  watch-making.  John  Har- 
rison, stimulated  by  these  offers  to  increased  exer- 
tion, in  the  year  1736  presented  himself  at  Green- 
wich with  one  of  his  wonderful  clocks,  provided 
with  the  gridiron  pendulum,  which  he  exhibited 
and  explained  to  the  commissioners.  Perceiving 
the  merit  and  beauty  of  his  invention,  they  placed 
the  clock  on  board  a  ship  bound  for  Lisbon.  This 
was  subjecting  a  pendulum  clock  to  a  very  unfair 
trial ;  but  it  corrected  the  ship's  reckoning  several 
miles.  The  commissioners  now  urged  him  to  com- 
pete   for  the   chronometer   prize,  and  in  order  to 


JOHN  HARRISON.  63 

enable  him  to  do  so  they  supplied  him  with  money, 
from  time  to  time,  for  twenty-four  years.  At  length 
he  produced  his  chronometer,  about  four  inches  in 
diameter,  and  so  mounted  as  not  to  share  the  mo- 
tion of  the  vessel. 

In  1761,  when  he  was  sixty-eight  years  of  age,  he 
wrote  to  the  commissioners  that  he  had  completed  a 
chronometer  for  trial,  and  requested  them  to  test  it 
on  a  voyage  to  the  West  Indies,  under  the  care  of 
his  son  William.  His  requests  were  granted.  The 
success  of  the  chronometer  was  wonderful.  On  ar- 
riving at  Jamaica,  the  chronometer  varied  but  four 
seconds  from  Greenwich  time,  and  on  returning  to 
England  the  entire  variation  was  a  little  short  of 
two  minutes ;  which  was  equivalent  to  a  longitudi- 
nal variation  of  eighteen  miles.  The  ship  had  been 
absent  from  Portsmouth  one  hundred  and  forty- 
seven  days. 

This  signal  triumph  was  won  after  forty  years 
of  labor  and  experiment.  The  commissioners  de- 
manding another  trial,  the  watch  was  taken  to  Bar- 
badoes,  and,  after  an  absence  of  a  hundred  and 
fifty-six  days,  showed  a  variation  of  only  fifteen 
seconds.  After  other  and  very  exacting  tests,  it 
was  decided  that  John  Harrison  had  fulfilled  all  the 
prescribed  conditions,  and  he  received  accordingly 
the  whole  sum  of  twenty  thousand  pounds  sterling. 

It  is  now  asserted  by  experts  that  he  owed  the 
success  of  his  watch,  not  so  much  to  originality  of 
invention,  as  to  the  exquisite  skill  and  precision  of 


64  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

his  workmanship.  He  had  one  of  the  most  perfect 
mechanical  hands  that  ever  existed.  It  was  the 
touch  of  a  Raphael  applied  to  mechanism. 

John  Harrison  lived  to  the  good  old  age  of 
eighty-three  years.  He  died  in  London  in  1776, 
about  the  time  when  General  Washington  was  get- 
ting ready  to  drive  the  English  troops  and  their 
Tory  friends  out  of  Boston.  It  is  not  uncommon 
now-a-days  for  a  ship  to  be  out  four  or  five  months, 
and  to  hit  her  port  so  exactly  as  to  sail  straight 
into  it  without  altering  her  course  more  than  a 
point  or  two. 


PETER  FANEUIL, 

AND  THE  GREAT  HALL  HE  BUILT. 


A  story  is  told  of  the  late  Ealpli  TTaldo  Emer- 
son's first  lecture  in  Cincinnati,  forty  years  ago. 
A  worthy  pork-packer,  who  was  observed  to  listen 
with  close  attention  to  the  enigmatic  utterances  of 
the  sage,  was  asked  by  one  of  his  friends  what  he 
thought  of  the  performance. 

"  I  liked  it  very  well,"  said  he,  "  and  I  'm  glad 
I  went,  because  I  learned  from  it  how  the  Boston 
people  pronounce  Faneuil  Hall." 

He  was  perhaps  mistaken,  for  it  is  hardly  prob- 
able that  Mr.  Emerson  gave  the  name  in  the  old- 
fashioned  Boston  style,  which  was  a  good  deal  like 
the  word  funnel.  The  story,  however,  may  serve 
to  show  what  a  wide-spread  and  intense  reputation 
the  building  has.  Of  all  the  objects  in  Boston  it  is 
probably  the  one  best  known  to  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  one  surest  to  be  visited  by 
the  stranger.  The  Hall  is  a  curious,  quaint  little 
interior,  with  its  high  galleries,  and  its  collection 
of  busts  and  pictures  of  Revolutionary  heroes. 
Peter  Faneuil  little  thought   what   he  was  doing 


GQ  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

when  he  built  it,  though  he  appears  to  have  been  a 
man  of  liberal  and  enlightened  mind. 

The  Faneuils  were  prosperous  merchants  in  the 
French  city  of  Rochelle  in  1G85,  when  Louis  XIV. 
revoked  the  Edict  of  Nantes.  The  great-grand- 
father of  John  Jay  was  also  in  large  business  there 
at  that  time,  and  so  were  the  ancestors  of  our  De- 
lanceys,  Badeaus,  Pells,  Secors,  Allaires,  and  other 
families  familiar  to  the  ears  of  New  Yorkers,  many 
of  them  having  distinguished  living  representatives 
among  us.  They  were  of  the  religion  "  called  Re- 
formed, "  as  the  king  of  France  contemptuously 
styled  it.  Reformed  or  not,  they  were  among  the 
most  intelligent,  enterprising,  and  wealthy  of  the 
merchants  of  Rochelle. 

How  little  we  can  conceive  the  effect  upon  their 
minds  of  the  order  which  came  from  Paris  in  Octo- 
ber, 1685,  which  was  intended  to  put  an  end  for- 
ever to  the  Protestant  religion  in  France.  The 
kins:  meant  to  make  thorough  work  of  it.  He  or- 
dered  all  the  Huguenot  churches  in  the  kingdom  to 
be  instantly  demolished.  He  forbade  the  dissent- 
ers to  assemble  either  in  a  building  or  out  of  doors, 
on  pain  of  death  and  confiscation  of  all  their  goods. 
Their  clergymen  were  required  to  leave  the  king- 
dom within  fifteen  days.  Their  schools  were  in- 
terdicted, and  all  children  hereafter  born  of  Prot- 
estant parents  were  to  be  baptized  by  the  Catholic 
clergymen,  and  reared  as  Catholics. 

These  orders  were  enforced  with  reckless  feroc- 


PETER  FANEUIL.  67 

ity,  particularly  in  the  remoter  provinces  and  cities 
of  the  kingdom.  The  Faneuils,  the  Jays,  and  the 
Delanceys  of  that  renowned  city  saw  their  house  of 
worship  leveled  with  the  ground.  Dragoons  were 
quartered  in  their  houses,  whom  they  were  obliged 
to  maintain,  and  to  whose  insolence  they  were  ob- 
liged to  submit,  for  the  troops  were  given  to  under- 
stand that  they  were  the  king's  enemies  and  had  no 
rights  which  royal  soldiers  were  bound  to  respect. 
At  the  same  time,  the  edict  forbade  them  to  depart 
froni  the  kingdom,  and  particular  precautions  were 
taken  to  prevent  men  of  capital  from  doing  so. 

John  Jay  records  that  the  ancestor  of  his  family 
made  his  escape  by  artifice,  and  succeeded  in  taking 
with  him  a  portion  of  his  property.  Such  was  also 
the  good  fortune  of  the  brothers  Faneuil,  who  were 
part  of  the  numerous  company  from  old  Rochelle 
who  emigrated  to  New  York  about  1690,  and  formed 
a  settlement  upon  Long  Island  Sound,  twelve  miles 
from  New  York,  which  they  named,  and  which  is 
still  called,  New  Rochelle.  The  old  names  can  still 
be  read  in  that  region,  both  in  the  churchyards  and 
upon  the  door  plates,  and  the  village  of  Pelham 
recalls  the  name  of  the  Pell  family  who  fled  from 
Rochelle  about  the  same  time,  and  obtained  a  grant 
of  six  thousand  acres  of  land  near  by.  The  new- 
comers were  warmly  welcomed,  as  their  friends  and 
relations  were  in  England. 

The  Faneuil  brothers  did  not  remain  long  in  Ne\* 
Rochelle,  but  removed  to  Boston  in  1691.     Ben- 


68  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

jainin  and  Andrew  were  their  names.  There  are 
many  traces  of  them  in  the  early  records,  indicat- 
ing tliat  they  were  merchants  of  large  capital  and 
extensive  business  for  that  day.  There  are  evi- 
dences also  that  they  were  men  of  intelligence  and 
public  spirit.  They  appear  to  have  been  members 
of  the  Church  of  England  in  Boston,  which  of  it- 
self placed  them  somewhat  apart  from  the  majority 
of  their  fellow-citizens. 

Peter  Faneuil,  the  builder  of  the  famous  Hall, 
who  was  born  in  Boston  about  1701,  the  oldest  of 
eleven  children,  succeeded  to  the  business  founded 
by  his  uncle  Andrew,  and  while  still  a  young  man 
had  greatly  increased  it,  and  was  reckoned  one  of 
the  leading  citizens. 

A  curious  controversy  had  agitated  the  people  of 
Boston  for  many  years.  The  town  had  existed  for 
nearly  a  century  without  having  a  public  market 
of  any  kind,  the  country  people  bringing  in  their 
produce  and  selling  it  from  door  to  door.  In 
February,  1717,  occurred  the  Great  Snow,  which 
destroyed  great  numbers  of  domestic  and  wild  ani- 
mals, and  caused  provisions  for  some  weeks  to  be 
scarce  and  dear.  The  inhabitants  laid  the  blame 
of  the  dearness  to  the  rapacity  of  the  hucksters,  and 
the  subject  being  brought  up  in  town  meeting,  a 
committee  reported  that  the  true  remedy  was  to 
build  a  market,  to  appoint  market  days,  and  estab- 
lish rides.  The  farmers  opposed  the  scheme,  as 
did  also  many  of  the  citizens.     The  project  being 


PETER  FANEUIL.  69 

defeated,  it  was  revived  year  after  year,  but  the 
country  people  always  contrived  to  defeat  it.  An 
old  chronicler  has  a  quaint  passage  on  the  subject. 

"  The  country  people,"  he  says,  "  always  op- 
posed the  market,  so  that  the  question  could  not 
be  settled.  The  reason  they  give  for  it  is,  that  if 
market  days  were  appointed,  all  the  country  people 
coming  in  at  the  same  time  would  glut  it,  and  the 
towns-people  would  buy  their  provisions  for  what 
they  pleased  ;  so  rather  choose  to  send  them  as  they 
think  fit.  And  sometimes  a  tall  fellow  brings  in 
a  turkey  or  goose  to  sell,  and  will  travel  through 
the  whole  town  to  see  who  will  give  most  for  it,  and 
it  is  at  last  sold  for  three  and  six  pence  or  four 
shillings ;  and  if  he  had  stayed  at  home,  he  could 
have  earned  a  crown  by  his  labor,  which  is  the  cus- 
tomary price  for  a  day's  work.  So  any  one  may 
judge  of  the  stupidity  of  the  country  people." 

In  Boston  libraries,  pamphlets  are  still  preserved 
on  this  burning  question  of  a  market,  which  re- 
quired seventeen  years  of  discussion  before  a  town 
meeting  was  brought  to  vote  for  the  erection  of 
market  houses.  In  1734,  seven  hundred  pounds 
were  appropriated  for  the  purpose.  The  market 
hours  were  fixed  from  sunrise  to  1  P.  M.,  and  a  bell 
was  ordered  to  be  rung  to  announce  the  time  of 
opening.  The  country  people,  however,  had  their 
way,  notwithstanding.  They  so  resolutely  refrained 
from  attending  the  markets  that  in  less  than  four 
years  the  houses  fell  into  complete  disuse.     One  of 


70  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

the  buildings  was  taken  down,  and  the  timber  used 
in  constructing  a  workhouse  ;  one  was  turned  into 
stores,  and  the  third  was  torn  to  pieces  by  a  mob, 
who  carried  off  the  material  for  their  own  use. 

Nevertheless,  the  market  question  could  not  be 
allayed,  for  the  respectable  inhabitants  of  the  town 
were  still  convinced  of  the  need  of  a  market  as  a 
defense  against  exorbitant  charges.  For  some  years 
the  subject  was  brought  up  in  town  meetings  ;  but 
as  often  as  it  came  to  the  point  of  appropriating 
money  the  motion  was  lost.  At  length  Mr.  Peter 
Faneuil  came  forward  to  end  the  dissension  in  a 
truly  magnificent  manner.  He  offered  to  build 
a  market  house  at  his  own  expense,  and  make  a 
present  of  it  to  the  town. 

Even  this  liberal  offer  did  not  silence  opposi- 
tion. A  petition  was  presented  to  the  town  meeting, 
signed  by  three  hundred  and  forty  inhabitants, 
asking  the  acceptance  of  Peter  Faneuil's  proposal. 
The  opposition  to  it,  however,  was  strong.  At 
length  it  was  agreed  that,  if  a  market  house  were 
built,  the  country  people  should  be  at  liberty  to 
sell  their  produce  from  door  to  door  if  they  pleased. 
Even  with  this  concession,  only  367  citizens  voted 
for  the  market  and  360  voted  against  it.  Thus,  by 
a  majority  of  seven,  the  people  of  Boston  voted  to 
accept  the  most  munificent  gift  the  town  had  re- 
ceived since  it  was  founded. 

Peter  Faneuil  went  beyond  his  promise.  Besides 
building  an  ample  market  place,  he  added  a  second 


PETER  FANEUIL.  71 

story  for  a  town  hall,  and  other  offices  for  public 
use.  The  building  originally  measured  one  hun- 
dred feet  by  forty,  and  was  finished  in  so  elegant 
a  style  as  to  be  reckoned  the  chief  ornament  of  the 
town.  It  was  completed  in  1742,  after  two  years 
had  been  spent  in  building  it.  It  had  scarcely 
been  opened  for  public  use  when  Peter  Faneuil 
died,  aged  a  little  less  than  forty-three  years.  The 
grateful  citizens  gave  him  a  public  funeral,  and 
the  Selectmen  appointed  Mr.  John  Lovell,  school- 
master, to  deliver  his  funeral  oration  in  the  Hall 
bearing  Ins  name.  The  oration  was  entered  at 
length  upon  the  records  of  the  town,  and  has  been 
frequently  published. 

In  1761  the  Hall  was  destroyed  by  fire.  It  was 
immediately  rebuilt,  and  this  second  structure  was 
the  Faneuil  Hall  in  which  were  held  the  meetings 
preceding  and  during  the  war  for  Independence, 
which  have  given  it  such  universal  celebrity.  Here 
Samuel  Adams  spoke.  Here  the  feeling  was  created 
which  made  Massachusetts  the  centre  and  source  of 
the  revolutionary  movement. 

Let  me  not  omit  to  state  that  those  obstinate 
country  people,  who  knew  what  they  wanted,  were 
proof  against  the  attractions  of  Faneuil  Hall  mar- 
ket. They  availed  themselves  of  their  privilege 
of  selling  their  produce  from  door  to  door,  as  they 
had  done  from  the  beginning  of  the  colony.  Fewer 
and  fewer  hucksters  kept  stalls  in  the  market,  and 
in  a  few  years  the  lower  room  was  closed  altogether. 


72  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

The  building  served,  however,  as  Town  Hall  until 
it  was  superseded  by  structures  more  in  harmony 
with  modern  needs  and  tastes. 

What  thrilling  scenes  the  Hall  has  witnessed ! 
That  is  a  pleasing  touch  in  one  of  the  letters  of 
John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  where  he  alludes 
to  what  was  probably  his  last  visit  to  the  scene  of 
his  youthful  glory,  Faneuil  Hall.  Mr.  Adams  was 
eighty-three  years  old  at  the  time,  and  it  was  the 
artist  Trumbull,  also  an  old  man,  who  prevailed 
upon  him  to  go  to  the  Hall. 

"  Trumbull,"  he  wrote,  "  with  a  band  of  associ- 
ates, drew  me  by  the  cords  of  old  friendship  to  see 
his  picture,  on  Saturday,  where  I  got  a  great  cold. 
The  air  of  Faneuil  is  changed.  /  have  not  been 
used  to  catch  cold  there." 

No,  indeed.  If  the  process  of  storing  electricity 
had  been  applied  to  the  interior  of  this  electric  edi- 
fice, enough  of  the  fluid  could  have  been  saved  to 
illuminate  Boston  every  Fourth  of  July.  It  is  hard 
to  conceive  of  a  tranquil  or  commonplace  meeting 
there,  so  associated  is  it  in  our  minds  with  out- 
bursts of  passionate  feeling. 

Speaking  of  John  Adams  calls  to  mind  an  anec- 
dote related  recently  by  a  venerable  clergyman  of 
New  York,  Rev.  AVilliam  Hague.  Mr.  Hague  of- 
ficiated as  chaplain  at  the  celebration  of  the  Fourth 
of  July  in  Boston,  in  1843,  when  Charles  Francis 
Adams  delivered  the  oration  in  Faneuil  Hall,  which 
was   his   first   appearance   on   a   public  platform. 


PETER  FANEUIL.  73 

"While  the  procession  was  forming  to  march  to  the 
Hall,  ex-President  John  Quincy  Adams  entered 
into  conversation  with  the  chaplain,  during  which 
he  spoke  as  follows  :  — 

"  This  is  one  of  the  happiest  days  of  my  whole 
life.  Fifty  years  expire  to-day  since  I  performed 
in  Boston  my  first  public  service,  which  was  the  de- 
livery of  an  oration  to  celebrate  our  national  inde- 
pendence. After  half  a  century  of  active  life,  I  am 
spared  by  a  benign  Providence  to  witness  my  son's 
performance  of  his  first  public  service,  to  deliver 
an  oration  in  honor  of  the  same  -great  event." 

The  chaplain  replied  to  Mr.  Adams  :  — 

"  President,  I  am  well  aware  of  the  notable  con- 
nection of  events  to  which  you  refer ;  and  having 
committed  and  declaimed  a  part  of  your  own  great 
oration  when  a  schoolboy  in  New  York,  I  could 
without  effort  repeat  it  to  you  now." 

The  aged  statesman  was  surprised  and  gratified 
at  this  statement.  The  procession  was  formed  and 
the  oration  successfully  delivered.  Since  that  time, 
I  believe,  an  Adams  of  the  fourth  generation  has 
spoken  in  the  same  place,  and  probably  some  read- 
ers will  live  to  hear  one  of  the  fifth  and  sixth. 

The  venerable  John  Adams  might  well  say  that 
he  had  not  been  used  to  catch  cold  in  the  air  of 
Faneuil  Hall,  for  as  far  as  I  know  there  has  never 
been  held  there  a  meeting  which  has  not  something 
of  extraordinary  warmth  in  its  character.  I  have 
mentioned  above  that  the  first  public  meeting  ever 


74  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

held  in  it  after  its  completion  in  1742  was  to  com- 
memorate the  premature  death  of  the  donor  of  the 
edifice  ;  on  which  occasion  Mr.  John  Lovell  deliv- 
ered a  glowing  eulogium. 

"  Let  this  stately  edifice  which  bears  his  name," 
cried  the  orator,  "  witness  for  him  what  sums  he 
expended  in  public  munificence.  This  building, 
erected  by  him,  at  his  own  immense  charge,  for  the 
convenience  and  ornament  of  the  town,  is  incom- 
parably the  greatest  benefaction  ever  yet  known  to 
our  western  shore." 

Towards  the  close  of  his  speech,  the  eloquent 
schoolmaster  gave  utterance  to  a  sentiment  which 
has  often  since  been  repeated  within  those  walls." 

"  May  this  hall  be  ever  sacred  to  the  interests  of 
truth,  of  justice,  of  loyalty,  of  honor,  of  liberty. 
May  no  private  views  nor  party  broils  ever  enter 
these  walls." 

Whether  this  wish  has  been  fulfilled  or  not  is  a 
matter  of  opinion.  General  Gage  doubtless  thought 
that  it  had  not  been. 

Scenes  of  peculiar  interest  took  place  in  the  Hall 
about  the  beginning  of  the  year  1761,  when  the 
news  was  received  in  Boston  that  King  George  II. 
had  fallen  dead  in  his  palace  at  Kensington,  and 
that  George  III.,  his  grandson,  had  been  pro- 
claimed king.  It  required  just  two  months  for 
this  intelligence  to  cross  the  ocean.  The  first  thing 
in  order,  it  seems,  was  to  celebrate  the  accession  of 
the  young  king.     He  was  proclaimed  from  the  bal- 


PETER  FANEUIL.  75 

cony  of  the  town  house ;  guns  were  fired  from  all 
the  forts  in  the  harbor ;  and  in  the  afternoon  a 
grand  dinner  was  given  in  Faneuil  Hall.  These 
events  occurred  on  the  last  day  but  one  of  the  year 
1760. 

The  first  day  of  the  new  year,  1761,  was  ushered 
in  by  the  solemn  tolling  of  the  church  bells  in  the 
town,  and  the  firing  of  minute  guns  on  Castle  Is- 
land. These  mournful  sounds  were  heard  all  day, 
even  to  the  setting  of  the  sun.  However  dole- 
ful the  day  may  have  seemed,  there  was  more  ap- 
propriateness in  these  signs  of  mourning  than  any 
man  of  that  generation  could  have  known ;  for  with 
George  II.  died  the  indolent  but  salutary  let-them- 
alone  policy  under  which  the  colonies  enjoyed  pros- 
perity and  peace.  With  the  accession  of  the  new 
king  the  troubles  began  which  ended  in  the  disrup- 
tion of  the  empire.  George  III.  was  the  last  king 
whose  accession  received  official  recognition  in  the 
thirteen  colonies. 

I  have  hunted  in  vain  through  my  books  to  find 
some  record  of  the  dinner  given  in  Faneuil  Hall  to 
celebrate  the  beginning  of  the  new  reign.  It  would 
be  interesting  to  know  how  the  sedate  people  of 
Boston  comported  themselves  on  a  festive  occasion 
of  that  character.  John  Adams  was  a  young  bar- 
rister then.  If  the  after-dinner  speeches  were  as 
outspoken  as  the  political  comments  he  entered  in 
his  Diary,  the  proceedings  could  not  have  been  very 
acceptable  to  the  royal  governor.     Mr.  Adams  was 


76  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

far  from  thinking  that  England  had  issued  victori- 
ous  from  the  late  campaigns,  and  he  thought  that 
France  was  then  by  far  the  most  brilliant  and  pow- 
erful nation  in  Europe. 

A  few  days  after  these  loyal  ceremonies,  Boston 
experienced  what  is  now  known  there  as  a  "  cold 
snap,"  and  it  was  so  severe  as  almost  to  close  the 
harbor  with  ice.  One  evening,  in  the  midst  of  it,  a 
fire  broke  out  opposite  Eaneuil  Hall.  Such  was  the 
extremity  of  cold  that  the  water  forced  from  the 
engines  fell  upon  the  ground  in  particles  of  ice.  The 
fire  swept  across  the  street  and  caught  Faneuil  Hall, 
the  interior  of  which  was  entirely  consumed,  noth- 
ing remaining  but  the  solid  brick  walls.  It  was  re- 
built  in  just  two  years,  and  reopened  in  the  midst  of 
another  remarkably  cold  time,  which  was  signalized 
by  another  bad  fire.  There  was  so  much  distress 
among  *he  poor  that  winter  that  a  meeting  was 
held  in  Faneuil  Hall  for  their  relief,  Rev.  Samuel 
Mather  preaching  a  sermon  on  the  occasion,  and 
this  was  the  first  discourse  delivered  in  it  after  it 
was  rebuilt. 

Seven  years  later  the  Hall  was  put  to  a  very  dif- 
ferent use.  A  powerful  fleet  of  twelve  men-of-war, 
filled  with  troops,  was  coming  across  the  ocean  to 
apply  military  pressure  to  the  friends  of  liberty. 
A  convention  was  held  in  Faneuil  Hall,  attended 
by  delegates  from  the  surrounding  towns,  as  well  as 
by  the  citizens  of  Boston.  The  people  were  in  con- 
sternation, for  they  feared  that  any  attempt  to  land 


PETER  FANEUIL.  77 

the  troops  would  lead  to  violent  resistance.  The 
convention  indeed  requested  the  inhabitants  to 
"  provide  themselves  with  firearms,  that  they  may 
be  prepared  in  case  of  sudden  danger." 

The  atmosphere  was  extremely  electric  in  Boston 
just  then.  The  governor  sent  word  to  the  conven- 
tion assembled  in  Faneuil  Hall  that  their  meeting 
was  "  a  very  high  offense  "  which  only  their  igno- 
rance of  the  law  could  excuse ;  but  the  plea  of 
ignorance  could  no  longer  avail  them,  and  he  com- 
manded them  to  disperse.  The  convention  sent  a 
reply  to  the  governor,  which  he  refused  to  re 
and  they  continued  in  session  until  the  fleet  en- 
tered the  harbor. 

October  2,  17G8,  the  twelve  British  men-of-war 
were  anchored  in  a  semicircle  opposite  the  town, 
with  cannon  loaded,  and  cleared  for  action,  as 
though  Boston  were  a  hostile  stronghold,  instead  of 
a  defenseless  country  town  of  loyal  and  innocent 
fellow-citizens.  Two  regiments  landed ;  one  of 
which  encamped  on  the  Common,  and  the  other 
marched  to  Faneuil  Hall,  where  they  were  quar- 
tered for  four  or  five  weeks.  With  one  accord  the 
merchants  and  property-owners  refused  to  let  any 
building  for  the  use  of  the  troops. 

Boston  people  to  this  day  chuckle  over  the  mis- 
hap of  the  sheriff  who  tried  to  get  possession  of  a 
large  warehouse  through  a  secret  aperture  in  the 
cellar  wall.  He  did  succeed  in  effecting  an  en- 
trance, with  several  of  his  deputies.     But  as  soon 


78  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

as  they  were  inside  the  building,  the  patriots  out- 
side closed  the  hole  ;  and  thus,  instead  of  getting 
possession  of  the  building,  the  loyal  officers  found 
themselves  prisoners  in  a  dark  cellar. 

They  were  there  for  several  hours  before  they 
could  get  word  to  the  commanding  officer,  who  re- 
leased them. 

The  joke  was  consolatory  to  the  inhabitants.  It 
was  on  this  occasion  that  Rev.  Mather  Byles  height- 
ened the  general  merriment  by  his  celebrated  jest 
on  the  British  soldiers : 

"  The  people,"  said  he,  "  sent  over  to  England 
to  obtain  a  redress  of  grievances.  The  grievances 
have  returned  red-dressed" 

The  Hall  is  still  used  for  public  meetings,  and 
the  region  roundabout  is  still  an  important  public 
market. 


IP 


CHAUNCEY  JEROME, 

YANKEE  CLOCK-MAKER. 


Poor  boys  had  a  liarcl  time  of  it  in  New  England 
eighty  years  ago.  Observe,  now,  tow  it  fared  with 
Chauncey  Jerome,  —  he  who  founded  a  celebrated 
clock  business  ih  Connecticut,  that  turned  out  six 
hundred  clocks  a  day,  and  sent  them  to  foreign 
countries  by  the  ship-load. 

But  do  not  run  away  with  the  idea  that  it  was 
the  hardship  and  loneliness  of  his  boyhood  that 
"made  a  man  of  him."  On  the  contrary,  they 
injured,  narrowed,  and  saddened  him.  He  woidd 
have  been  twice  the  man  he  was,  and  happier  all 
his  days,  if  he  had  passed  an  easier  and  a  more 
cheerful  childhood.  It  is  not  good  for  boys  to  live 
as  he  lived,  and  work  as  he  worked,  during  the 
period  of  growth,  and  I  am  glad  that  fewer  boys 
are  now  compelled  to  bear  such  a  lot  as  his. 

His  father  was  a  blacksmith  and  nailmaker,  of 
Plymouth,  Connecticut,  with  a  houseful  of  hungry 
boys  and  girls;  and,  consequently,  as  soon  as 
Chauncey  could  handle  a  hoe  or  tie  up  a  bundle  of 
grain  he  was  kept  at  work  on  the  farm ;  for,  in 


80  CAPTAINS   OF  INDUSTRY. 

those  clays,  almost  all  mechanics  in  New  England 
cultivated  land  in  the  summer  time.  The  boy  went 
to  school  during  the  three  winter  months,  until  he 
was  ten  years  old ;  then  his  school-days  and  play- 
days  were  over  forever,  and  his  father  took  him 
into  the  shop  to  help  make  nails. 

Even  as  a  child  he  showed  that  power  of  keep- 
ing on,  to  which  he  owed  his  after-success.  There 
was  a  great  lazy  boy  at  the  district  school  he  at- 
tended who  had  a  load  of  wood  to  chop,  which  he 
hated  to  do,  and  'this  small  Chauncey,  eight  or  nine 
years  of  age,  chopped  the  whole  of  it  for  him  for 
one  cent!  Often  he  would  chop  wood  for  the 
neighbors  in  moonlight  evenings  for  a  few  cents  a 
load.  It  is  evident  that  the  quality  which  made 
him  a  successful  man  of  business  was  not  devel- 
oped by  hardship,  for  he  performed  these  labors 
voluntarily.  He  was  naturally  industrious  and  per- 
severing. 

When  he  was  eleven  years  of  age  his  father  sud- 
denly died,  and  he  found  himself  obliged  to  leave 
his  happy  home  and  find  farm  work  as  a  poor  hire- 
ling boy.  There  were  few  farmers  then  in  Connec- 
ticut —  nay,  there  were  few  people  anywhere  in  the 
world  —  who  knew  how  to  treat  an  orphan  obliged 
to  work  for  his  subsistence  among  strangers.  On 
a  Monday  morning,  with  his  little  bundle  of  clothes 
in  his  hand,  and  an  almost  bursting  heart,  he  bade 
his  mother  and  his  brothers  and  sisters  good-by, 
and  walked  to  the  place  which  he  had  found  for 
himself,  on  a  farm  a  few  miles  from  home. 


CHAUXCEY  JEROME.  81 

He  was  most  walling  to  work ;  but  Lis  affec- 
tionate heart  was  starved  at  his  new  place ;  and 
scarcely  a  day  passed  during  his  first  year  when  he 
did  not  burst  into  tears  as  he  worked  alone  in  the 
fields,  thinking  of  the  father  he  had  lost,  and  of 
the  happy  family  broken  up  never  to  live  together 
again.  It  was  a  lonely  farm,  and  the  people  with 
whom  he  lived  took  no  interest  in  him  as  a  human 
being,  but  regarded  him  with  little  more  considera- 
tion than  one  of  their  other  working  animals.  They 
took  care,  however,  to  keep  him  steadily  at  work, 
early  and  late,  hot  and  cold,  rain  and  shine.  Often 
he  worked  all  day  in  the  woods  chopping  down 
trees  with  his  shoes  full  of  snow ;  he  never  had  a 
pair  of  boots  till  he  was  nearly  twenty-one  years 
of  age. 

Once  in  two  weeks  he  had  a  great  joy  ;  for  his 
master  let  him  go  to  church  every  other  Sunday. 
After  working  two  weeks  without  seeing  more  than 
half  a  dozen  people,  it  gave  him  a  peculiar  and  in- 
tense delight  just  to  sit  in  the  church  gallery  and 
look  down  upon  so  many  human  beings.  It  was 
the  only  alleviation  of  his  dismal  lot. 

Poor  little  lonely  wretch  !  One  day,  when  he  was 
thirteen  years  of  age,  there  occurred  a  total  eclipse 
of  the  sun,  a  phenomenon  of  winch  he  had  scarcely 
heard,  and  he  had  not  the  least  idea  what  it  could 
be.  He  was  hoeing  corn  that  day  in  a  solitary 
place.  When  the  darkness  and  the  chill  of  the 
eclipse  fell  upon  the  earth,  feeling  sure  the  day  of 


82  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

judgment  had  come,  lie  was  terrified  beyond  descrip- 
tion. He  watched  the  sun  disappearing  with  the 
deepest  apprehension,  and  felt  no  relief  until  it 
shone  out  bright  and  warm  as  before. 

It  seems  strange  that  people  in  a  Christian  coun- 
try could  have  had  a  good  steady  boy  like  this  in 
their  house  and  yet  do  nothing  to  cheer  or  comfort 
his  life.  Old  men  tell  me  it  was  a  very  common 
case  in  New  England  seventy  years  ago. 

This  hard  experience  on  the  farm  lasted  until  he 
was  old  enough  to  be  apprenticed.  At  fourteen  he 
was  bound  to  a  carpenter  for  seven  years,  during 
which  he  was  to  receive  for  his  services  his  board 
and  his  clothes.  Already  he  had  done  almost  the 
work  of  a  man  on  the  farm,  being  a  stout,  handy 
fellow,  and  in  the  course  of  two  or  three  years  he 
did  the  work  of  a  full-grown  carpenter  :  neverthe- 
less, he  received  no  wages  except  the  necessaries  of 
life.  Fortunately  the  carpenter's  family  were  hu- 
man beings,  and  he  had  a  pleasant,  friendly  home 
during  his  apprenticeship. 

Even  imder  the  gentlest  masters  apprentices,  in 
old  times,  were  kept  most  strictly  to  their  duty. 
They  were  lucky  if  they  got  the  whole  of  Thanks- 
giving and  the  Fourth  of  July  for  holidays. 

Now,  this  apprentice,  when  he  was  sixteen,  was 
so  homesick  on  a  certain  occasion  that  he  felt  he 
must  go  and  see  his  mother,  who  lived  near  her  old 
home,  twenty  miles  from  where  he  was  working  on 
a  job.     He  walked  the  distance  in  the  night,  in 


CHAUNCEY  JEROME.  83 

order  not  to  rob  his  master  of  any  of  the  time  clue 
to  him. 

It  was  a  terrible  night's  work.  He  was  sorry  he 
had  undertaken  it ;  but  having  started  he  could  not 
bear  to  give  it  up.  Half  the  way  was  through  the 
woods,  and  every  noise  he  heard  he  thought  was  a 
wild  beast  coming  to  kill  him,  and  even  the  piercing 
notes  of  the  whippoorwill  made  his  hair  stand  on 
end.  When  he  passed  a  house  the  dogs  were  after 
him  in  full  cry,  and  he  spent  the  whole  night  in  ter- 
ror. Let  us  hope  the  caresses  of  his  mother  com- 
pensated him  for  this  suffering. 

The  next  year  when  his  master  had  a  job  thirty 
miles  distant,  he  frequently  walked  the  distance  on 
a  hot  summer's  day,  with  his  carpenter's  tools  upon 
his  back.  At  that  time  light  vehicles,  or  any  kind 
of  one-horse  carriage,  were  very  rarely  kept  in  coun- 
try places,  and  mechanics  generally  had  to  trudge 
to  their  place  of  work,  carrying  their  tools  with 
them.  So  passed  the  first  years  of  his  apprentice- 
ship. 

All  this  time  he  was  thinking  of  quite  another 
business,  — that  of  clock-making,  —  which  had  been 
developed  during  his  childhood  near  his  father's 
house,  by  Eli  Terry,  the  founder  of  the  Yankee 
wooden-clock  manufacture. 

This  ingenious  Mr.  Terry,  with  a  small  saw  and 
a  jack-knife,  would  cut  out  the  wheels  and  works 
for  twenty-five  clocks  during  the  winter,  and,  when 
the  spring  opened,  he  would  sling  three  or  four  of 


84  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

them  across  the  back  of  a  horse,  and  keep  going 
till  he  sold  them,  for  about  twenty-five  dollars 
apiece.  This  was  for  the  works  only.  When  a 
farmer  had  bought  the  machinery  of  a  clock  for 
twenty-five  dollars,  he  employed  the  village  car- 
penter to  make  a  case  for  it,  which  might  cost  ten 
or  fifteen  dollars  more. 

It  was  in  this  simple  way  that  the  country  was 
supplied  with  those  tall,  old-fashioned  clocks,  of 
which  almost  every  ancient  farm-house  still  con- 
tains a  specimen.  The  clock-case  was  sometimes 
built  into  the  house  like  a  pillar,  and  helped  to  sup- 
port the  upper  story.  Some  of  them  were  made 
by  very  clumsy  workmen,  out  of  the  commonest 
timber,  just  planed  in  the  roughest  way,  and  con- 
tained wood  enough  for  a  pretty  good-sized  organ. 

The  clock  business  had  fascinated  Chauncey  Je- 
rome from  his  childhood,  and  he  longed  to  work  at 
it.  His  guardian  dissuaded  him.  So  many  clocks 
were  then  making,  he  said,  that  in  two  or  three 
years  the  whole  country  would  be  supplied,  and 
then  there  would  be  no  more  business  for  a  clock- 
maker.  This  was  the  general  opinion.  At  a  train- 
ing, one  day,  the  boy  overheard  a  group  talking  of 
Eli  Terry's  folly  in  undertaking  to  make  two  hun- 
dred clocks  all  at  once. 

"  He  '11  never  live  long  enough  to  finish  them," 
said  one. 

"  If  he  should,"  said  another,  "  he  could  not  pos- 
sibly sell  so  many.     The  very  idea  is  ridiculous." 


GHAUNCEY  JEROME.  85 

The  boy  was  not  convinced  by  these  wise  men  of 
the  East,  and  he  lived  to  make  and  to  sell  two 
hundred  thousand  clocks  in  one  year ! 

"When  his  apprenticeship  was  a  little  more  than 
half  over,  he  told  his  master  that  if  he  would  give 
him  four  months  in  the  winter  of  each  year,  when 
business  was  dull,  he  would  buy  his  own  clothes. 
His  master  consenting,  he  went  to  Wraterbury,  Con- 
necticut, and  began  to  work  making  clock  dials, 
and  very  soon  got  an  insight  into  the  art  and  mys- 
tery of  clock-making. 

The  clock-makers  of  that  day,  who  carried  round 
their  clock-movements  upon  a  horse's  back,  often 
found  it  difficult  to  sell  them  in  remote  country 
places,  because  there  was  no  carpenter  near  by 
competent  to  make  a  case.  Two  smart  Yankees 
hired  our  apprentice  to  go  with  them  to  the  distant 
State  of  New'  Jersey,  for  the  express  purpose  of 
making  cases  for  the  clocks  they  sold.  On  this 
journey  he  first  saw  the  city  of  New  York.  He 
was  perfectly  astonished  at  the  bustle  and  confu- 
sion. He  stood  on  the  corner  of  Chatham  and 
Pearl  Streets  for  more  than  an  hour,  wondering 
why  so  many  people  were  hurrying  about  so  in 
every  direction. 

u  "What  is  going  on  ?  "  said  he,  to  a  passer-by. 
"  "What 's  the  excitement  about  ?  " 

The  man  hurried  on  without  noticing  him  ;  which 
led  him  to  conclude  that  city  people  were  not  over 
polite. 


86  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

The  workmen  were  just  Wishing  the  interior  of 
the  City  Hall,  and  he  was  greatly  puzzled  to  un- 
derstand how  those  winding  stone  stairs  could  be 
fixed  without  any  visible  means  of  support.  In 
New  Jersey  he  found  another  wonder.  The  people 
there  kept  Christmas  more  strictly  than  Sunday ; 
a  thing  very  strange  to  a  child  of  the  Puritans,  who 
hardly  knew  what  Christmas  was. 

Every  wiuter  added  something  to  his  knowledge 
of  clock-making,  and,  soon  after  he  was  out  of  his 
apprenticeship,  he  bought  some  portions  of  clocks, 
a  little  mahogany,  and  began  to  put  clocks  together 
on  his  own  account,  with  encouraging  success  from 
the  beginning. 

It  was  a  great  day  with  him  when  he  received 
his  first  magnificent  order  from  a  Southern  mer- 
chant for  twelve  wooden  clocks  at  twelve  dollars 
apiece !  When  they  were  done,  he  delivered  them 
himself  to  his  customer,  and  found  it  impossible  to 
believe  that  he  should  actually  receive  so  vast  a 
sum  as  a  hundred  and  forty-four  dollars.  He  took 
the  money  with  a  trembling  hand,  and  buttoned  it 
up  in  his  pocket.  Then  he  felt  an  awful  appre- 
hension that  some  robbers  might  have  heard  of  his 
expecting  to  receive  this  enormous  amount,  aud 
would  waylay  him  on  the  road  home. 

He  worked  but  too  steadily.  He  used  to  say 
that  he  loved  to  work  as  well  as  he  did  to  eat,  and 
that  sometimes  he  would  not  go  outside  of  his  gate 
from  one  Sundav  to  the  next.     He  soon  began  to 


CHAUNCEY  JEROME.  87 

make  inventions  and  improvements.  His  business 
rapidly  increased,  though  occasionally  he  had  heavy 
losses  and  misfortunes. 

His  most  important  contribution  to  the  business 
of  clock-making  was  his  substitution  of  brass  for 
wood  in  the  cheap  clocks.  He  found  that  his 
wooden  clocks,  when  they  were  transported  by  sea, 
were  often  spoiled  by  the  swelling  of  the  wooden 
wheels.  One  night,  in  a  moment  of  extreme  de- 
pression during  the  pauic  of  1837,  the  thought 
darted  into  his  mind,  — 

"  A  cheap  clock  can  be  made  of  brass  as  well  as 
wood ! " 

It  kept  him  awake  nearly  all  night.  He  began 
at  once  to  carry  out  the  idea.  It  gave  an  immense 
development  to  the  business,  because  brass  clocks 
could  be  exported  to  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  the 
cost  of  making  them  was  greatly  lessened  by  new 
machinery.  It  was  Chauncey  Jerome  who  learned 
how  to  make  a  pretty  good  brass  clock  for  forty 
cents,  and  a  good  one  for  two  dollars  ;  and  it  was 
he  who  began  their  exportation  to  foreign  lands. 
Clocks  of  his  making  ticked  during  his  lifetime  at 
Jerusalem,  Saint  Helena,  Calcutta,  Honolulu,  and 
most  of  the  other  ends  of  the  earth. 

After  making  millions  of  clocks,  and  acquiring 
a  large  fortune,  he  retired  from  active  business, 
leaving  his  splendid  manufactory  at  New  Haven 
to  the  management  of  others.  They  thought  they 
knew  more  than  the  old  man;  they  mismanaged 


88  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

the  business  terribly,  and  involved  him  in  their 
own  ruin.  He  was  obliged  to  leave  his  beautiful 
home  at  seventy  years  of  age,  and  seek  employment 
at  weekly  wages  —  he  who  had  given  employment 
to  three  hundred  men  at  once. 

He  scorned  to  be  dependent.  I  saw  and  talked 
long  with  this  good  old  man  when  he  was  working 
upon  a  salary,  at  the  age  of  seventy-three,  as  super- 
intendent of  a  large  clock  factory  in  Chicago.  He 
did  not  pretend  to  be  indifferent  to  the  change  in 
his  position.  He  felt  it  acutely.  He  was  proud 
of  the  splendid  business  he  had  created,  and  he 
lamented  its  destruction.  He  said  it  was  one  of  his 
consolations  to  know  that,  in  the  course  of  his  long 
life,  he  had  never  brought  upon  others  the  pains 
he  was  then  enduring.  He  bore  his  misfortunes 
as  a  man  should,  and  enjoyed  the  confidence  and 
esteem  of  his  new  associates. 


CAPTAIN    PIERRE   LACLEDE    LIGUEST, 

PIONEER. 


The  bridge  which  springs  so  lightly  and  so 
gracefully  over  the  Mississippi  at  St.  Louis  is  a 
truly  wonderful  structure.  It  often  happens  in  this 
world  that  the  work  which  is  done  best  conceals 
the  merit  of  the  worker.  All  is  finished  so  thor- 
oughly and  smoothly,  and  fulfills  its  purpose  with  so 
little  jar  and  friction,  that  the  difficulties  overcome 
by  the  engineer  become  almost  incredible.  No  one 
would  suppose,  while  looking  down  upon  the  three 
steel  arches  of  this  exquisite  bridge,  that  its  foun- 
dations are  one  hundred  and  twenty  feet  below  the 
surface  of  the  water,  and  that  its  construction  cost 
nine  millions  of  dollars  and  six  years  of  time.  Its 
great  height  above  the  river  is  also  completely  con- 
cealed by  the  breadth  of  its  span.  The  largest 
steamboat  on  the  river  passes  under  it  at  the  high- 
est stage  of  water,  and  yet  the  curve  of  the  arches 
appears  to  have  been  selected  merely  for  its  picto- 
rial effect. 

It  is  indeed  a  noble  and  admirable  work,  an 
honor  to  the  city  and  country,  and,  above  all,  to 


90  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

Captain  James  B.  Eacls,  who  designed  and  con- 
structed it.  The  spectator  who  sees  for  the  first 
time  St.  Louis,  now  covering  as  far  as  the  eye  can 
reach  the  great  bend  of  the  river  on  which  it  is 
built,  the  shore  fringed  with  steamboats  puffing 
black  smoke,  and  the  city  glittering  in  the  morning 
sun,  beholds  one  of  the  most  striking  and  animat- 
ing spectacles  which  this  continent  affords. 

Go  back  one  hundred  and  twenty  years.  That 
bend  was  then  covered  with  the  primeval  forest, 
and  the  only  object  upon  it  which  betrayed  the 
hand  of  man  was  a  huge  green  mound,  a  hundred 
feet  high,  that  had  been  thrown  up  ages  before  by 
some  tribe  which  inhabited  the  spot  before  our  In- 
dians had  appeared.  All  that  region  swarmed  with 
fur-bearing  animals,  deer,  bear,  buffalo,  and  beaver. 
It  is  difficult  to  see  how  this  continent  ever  could 
have  been  settled  but  for  the  fur  trade.  It  was 
beaver  skin  which  enabled  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  of 
New  England  to  hold  their  "own  during  the  first 
fifty  years  of  their  settlement.  It  was  in  quest  of 
furs  that  the  pioneers  pushed  westward,  and  it  was 
by  the  sale  of  furs  that  the  frontier  settlers  were  at 
first  supplied  with  arms,  ammunition,  tools,  and  salt. 

The  fur  trade  also  led  to  the  founding  of  St. 
Louis.  In  the  year  1763  a  great  fleet  of  heavy 
batteaux,  loaded  with  the  rude  merchandise  needed 
by  trappers  and  Indians,  approached  the  spot  on 
which  St.  Louis  stands.  This  fleet  had  made  its 
way  up  the  Mississippi  with  enormous  difficulty  and 


CAPTAIN  PIERRE  LACLEDE  LI  QUE  ST.       91 

toil  from  New  Orleans,  and  only  reached  the  mouth 
of  the  Missouri  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  month.  It 
was  commanded  by  Pierre  Laclede  Liguest,  the 
chief  partner  in  a  company  chartered  to  trade 
with  the  Indians  of  the  Missouri  River.  He  was  a 
Frenchman,  a  man  of  great  energy  and  executive 
force,  and  his  company  of  hunters,  trappers,  me- 
chanics, and  farmers,  were  also  French. 

On  his  way  up  the  river  Captain  Liguest  had 
noticed  this  superb  bend  of  land,  high  enough 
above  the  water  to  avoid  the  floods,  and  its  surface 
only  undulating  enough  for  the  purposes  of  a  settle- 
ment. Having  reached. the  mouth  of  the  Muddy 
River  (as  they  called  the  Missouri)  in  the  month 
of  December,  and  finding  no  place  there  well  suited 
to  his  purpose,  he  dropped  down  the  stream  seven- 
teen miles,  and  drove  the  prows  of  his  boats  into 
what  is  now  the  Levee  of  St.  Louis.  It  was  too 
late  in  the  season  to  begin  a  settlement.  But  he 
"  blazed  "  the  trees  to  mark  the  spot,  and  he  said 
to  a  young  man  of  his  company,  Auguste  Chou- 
teau :  — 

"  You  will  come  here  as  soon  as  the  river  is  free 
from  ice,  and  will  cause  this  place  to  be  cleared, 
and  form  a  settlement  according  to  the  plan  I  shall 
give  you." 

The  fleet  fell  down  the  river  to  the  nearest 
French  settlement,  Fort  de  Chartres.  Captain  Li- 
guest said  to  the  commander  of  this  fort  on  arriv- 
ing :  — 


92  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

"  I  have  found  a  situation  where  I  intend  to  es- 
tablish a  settlement  which  in  the  future  will  be- 
come one  of  the  most  beautiful  cities  in  America." 

These  are  not  imaginary  words.  Auguste  Chou- 
teau, who  was  selected  to  form  the  settlement,  kept 
a  diary,  part  of  which  is  now  preserved  in  the  Mer- 
cantile Library  at  St.  Louis,  and  in  it  this  say- 
ing of  Captain  Liguest  is  recorded.  So,  the  next 
spring  he  dispatched  young  Chouteau  with  a  select 
body  of  thirty  mechanics  and  hunters  to  the  site  of 
the  proposed  settlement. 

"  You  will  go,"  said  he,  "  and  disembark  at  the 
place  where  we  marked  the  trees.  You  will  begin 
to  clear  the  place  and  build  a  large  shed  to  contain 
the  provisions  and  tools  and  some  little  cabins  to 
lodge  the  men." 

On  the  fifteenth  of  February,  1764,  the  party 
arrived,  and  the  next  morning  began  to  build  their 
shed.  Liguest  named  the  settlement  St.  Louis,  in 
honor  of  the  patron  saint  of  the  royal  house  of 
France  —  Louis  XV.  being  then  upon  the  throne. 
All  went  well  with  the  settlement,  and  it  soon 
became  the  seat  of  the  fur  trade  for  an  immense 
region  of  country,  extending  gradually  from  the 
Mississippi  to  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

The  French  lived  more  peacefully  with  the  In- 
dians than  any  other  people  who  assisted  to  settle 
this  continent,  and  the  reason  appears  to  have  been 
that  they  became  almost  Indian  themselves.  They 
built  their  huts  in  the  wigwam  fashion,  with  poles 


CAPTAIN  PIERRE  LACLEDE  LI  GUEST.       93 

stuck  in  the  ground.  They  imitated  the  ways  and 
customs  of  the  Indians,  both  in  living  and  in  hunt- 
ing. They  went  on  hunting  expeditions  with  In- 
dians, wore  the  same  garments,  and  learned  to  live 
on  meat  only,  as  Indian  hunting  parties  generally 
did.  But  the  circumstance  which  most  endeared 
the  French  to  the  Indians  was  their  marrying  the 
daughters  of  the  chiefs,  which  made  the  Indians 
regard  them  as  Belonging  to  their  tribe.  Besides 
this,  they  accommodated  themselves  to  the  Indian 
character,  and  learned  how  to  please  them.  A  St. 
Louis  fur  trader,  who  was  living  a  few  years  ago  in 
the  ninetieth  year  of  his  age,  used  to  speak  of  the 
ease  with  which  an  influential  chief  could  be  con- 
ciliated. 

"  I  could  always,"  said  he,  "  make  the  principal 
chief  of  a  tribe  my  friend  by  a  piece  of  vermilion, 
a  pocket  looking-glass,  some  flashy-looking  beads, 
and  a  knife.  These  things  made  him  a  puppet  in 
my  hands." 

Even  if  a  valuable  horse  had  been  stolen,  a  chief, 
whose  friendship  had  been  won  in  this  manner, 
would  continue  to  scold  the  tribe  until  the  horse 
was  brought  back.  The  Indians,  too,  were  de- 
lighted with  the  Frenchman's  fiddle,  his  dancing, 
his  gayety  of  manner,  and  even  with  the  bright 
pageantry  of  his  religion.  It  was  when  the  settle- 
ment was  six  years  old  that  the  inhabitants  of  St. 
Louis,  a  very  few  hundreds  in  number,  gathered  to 
take  part  in  the  consecration  of  a  little  church, 


94  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

0 

made  very  much  like  the  great  council  wigwam  of 
the  Indians,  the  logs  being  placed  upright,  and  the 
interstices  filled  with  mortar.  This  church  stood 
near  the  river,  almost  on  the  very  site  of  the  pres- 
ent cathedral.  Mass  was  said,  and  the  Te  Deum 
was  chanted.  At  the  first  laying  out  of  the  village, 
Captain  Liguest  set  apart  the  whole  block  as  a  site 
for  the  church,  and  it  remains  church  property  to 
this  day. 

It  is  evident  from  Chouteau's  diary  that  Pierre 
Laclede  Liguest,  though  he  had  able  and  energetic 
assistants,  was  the  soul  of  the  enterprise,  and  the 
real  founder  of  St.  Louis.  He  was  one  of  that 
stock  of  Frenchmen  who  put  the  imprint  of  their 
nation,  never  to  be  effaced,  upon  the  map  of  North 
America  —  a  kind  of  Frenchman  unspeakably  dif- 
ferent from  those  who  figured  in  the  comic  opera 
and  the  masquerade  ball  of  the  late  corrupt  and 
effeminating  empire.  He  was  a  genial  and  gener- 
ous man,  who  rewarded  his  followers  bountifully, 
and  took  the  lead  in  every  service  of  difficulty  and 
danger.  While  on  a  visit  to  New  Orleans  he  died 
of  one  of  the  diseases  of  the  country,  and  was  buried 
on  the  shore  near  the  mouth  of  the  Arkansas  River. 

His  executor  and  chief  assistant,  Auguste  Chou- 
teau, born  at  New  Orleans  in  1739,  lived  one  hun- 
dred years,  not  dying  till  1839.  There  are  many 
people  in  St.  Louis  who  remember  him.  A  very 
remarkable  coincidence  was,  that  his  brother,  Pierre 
Chouteau,  born  in  New  Orleans  in  1749,  died  in 


CAPTAIN  PIERRE  LACLEDE  LI  GUEST.       95 

St.  Louis  in  1849,  having  also  lived  just  one  hun- 
dred years.  Both  of  these  brothers  were  identified 
with  St.  Louis  from  the  beginning,  where  they 
lived  in  affluence  and  honor  for  seventy  years,  and 
where  their  descendants  still  reside. 

The  growth  of  St.  Louis  was  long  retarded  by 
the  narrowness  and  tyranny  of  the  Spanish  govern- 
ment, to  which  the  French  ceded  the  country  about 
the  time  when  St.  Louis  was  settled.  But  in  1804 
it  was  transferred  to  the  United  States,  and  from 
that  time  its  progress  has  been  rapid  and  almost 
uninterrupted.  When  President  Jefferson's  agent 
took  possession,  there  was  no  post-office,  no  ferry 
over  the  river,  no  newspaper,  no  hotel,  no  Protestant 
church,  and  no  school.  Nor  could  any  one  hold 
land  who  was  not  a  Catholic.  Instantly,  and  as  a 
matter  of  course,  all  restricting  laws  were  swept 
away ;  and  before  two  years  had  passed  there  was 
a  ferry,  a  post-office,  a  newspaper,  a  Protestant 
church,  a  hotel,  and  two  schools,  one  French  and 
one  English. 


ISKAEL   PUTNAM. 


It  is  strange  that  so  straightforward  and  trans- 
parent a  character  as  "  Old  Put "  should  have  be- 
come the  subject  of  controversy.  Too  much  is 
claimed  for  him  by  some  disputants,  and  much  too 
little  is  conceded  to  him  by  others.  He  was  cer- 
tainly as  far  from  being  a  rustic  booby  as  he  was 
from  being  a  great  general. 

Conceive  him,  first,  as  a  thriving,  vigorous,  enter- 
prising Connecticut  farmer,  thirty  years  of  age, 
cultivating  with  great  success  his  own  farm  of  five 
hundred  and  fourteen  acres,  all  paid  for.  Himself 
one  of  a  family  of  twelve  children,  and  belonging  to 
a  prolific  race  which  has  scattered  Putnams  all  over 
the  United  States,  besides  leaving  an  extraordinary 
number  in  New  England,  he  had  married  young  at 
his  native  Salem,  and  established  himself  soon  after 
in  the  northeastern  corner  of  Connecticut.  At  that 
period,  1740,  Connecticut  was  to  Massachusetts  what 
Colorado  is  to  New  York  at  present ;  and  thither, 
accordingly,  this  vigorous  young  man  and  his  young 
wife  early  removed,  and  hewed  out  a  farm  from  the 
primeval  woods. 


ISRAEL  PUTNAM.  97 

He  was  just  the  man  for  a  pioneer.  His  strength 
of  body  was  extraordinary,  and  he  had  a  power  of 
sustained  exertion  more  valuable  even  than  great 
strength.  Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  he 
was  an  enterprising  and  successful  farmer,  who  in- 
troduced new  fruits,  better  breeds  of  cattle,  and 
improved  implements. 

There  is  still  to  be  seen  on  his  farm  a  long  ave- 
nue of  ancient  apple  trees,  which,  the  old  men  of 
the  neighborhood  affirm,  were  set  out  by  Israel  Put- 
nam one  hundred  and  forty  years  ago.  The  well 
which  he  dug  is  still  used.  Coming  to  the  place 
with  considerable  property  inherited  from  his  father 
(for  the  Putnams  were  a  thriving  race  from  the  be- 
ginning), it  is  not  surprising  that  he  should  have 
become  one  of  the  leading  farmers  in  a  county  of 
farmers. 

At  the  same  time  he  was  not  a  studious  man,  and 
had  no  taste  for  intellectual  enjoyments.  He  was 
not  then  a  member  of  the  church.  He  never  served 
upon  the  school  committee.  There  was  a  Library 
Association  at  the  next  village,  but  he  did  not  be- 
long to  it.  For  bold  riding,  skillful  hunting,  wood- 
chopping,  hay-tossing,  ploughing,  it  was  hard  to 
find  his  equal ;  but,  in  the  matter  of  learning,  he 
coidd  write  legibly,  read  well  enough,  spell  in  an 
independent  manner,  and  not  much  more. 

With  regard  to  the  wolf  story,  which  rests  upon 
tradition  only,  it  is  not  improbable,  and  there  is  no 
good  reason  to  doubt  it.     Similar  deeds  have  been 

7 


98  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

done  by  brave  backwoodsmen  from  the  beginning, 
and  are  still  done  within  the  boundaries  of  the 
United  States  every  year.  The  story  goes,  that 
vrhen  he  had  been  about  two  years  on  his  new  farm, 
the  report  was  brought  in  one  morning  that  a  noted 
she-wolf  of  the  neighborhood  had  killed  seventy  of 
his  sheep  and  goats,  besides  wounding  many  lambs 
and  kids.  This  wolf,  the  last  of  her  race  in  that 
region,  had  long  eluded  the  skill  of  every  hunter. 
Upon  seeing  the  slaughter  of  his  flock,  the  young 
farmer,  it  appears,  entered  into  a  compact  with  five 
of  his  neighbors  to  hunt  the  pernicious  creature  by 
turns  until  they  had  killed  her.  The  animal  was  at 
length  tracked  to  her  den,  a  cave  extending  deep 
into  a  rocky  hill.  The  tradition  is,  that  Putnam, 
with  a  rope  around  his  body,  a  torch  in  one  hand, 
and  rifle  in  the  other,  went  twice  into  the  cave,  and 
the  second  time  shot  the  wolf  dead,  and  was  drawn 
out  by  the  people,  wolf  and  all.  An  exploit  of  this 
nature  gave  great  celebrity  in  an  outlying  county 
in  the  year  1742.  Meanwhile  he  continued  to 
thrive,  and  one  of  the  old-fashioned  New  England 
families  of  ten  children  gathered  about  him.  As 
they  grew  towards  maturity,  he  bought  a  share  in 
the  Library  Association,  built  a  pew  for  his  family 
in  the  church,  and  comported  himself  in  all  ways  as . 
became  a  prosperous  farmer  and  father  of  a  numer- 
ous family. 

So  passed  his  life  until  he  reached  the  age  of 
thirty-seven,  when  he  already  had  a  boy  fifteen  years 


ISRAEL  PUTNAM.  99 

of  age,  and  was  rich  in  all  the  wealth  which  Con- 
necticut then  possessed.  The  French  war  broke 
out  —  the  war  which  decided  the  question  whether 
the  French  or  the  English  race  shoukl  possess  North 
America.  His  reputation  was  such  that  the  legisla- 
ture of  Connecticut  appointed  him  at  once  a  captain, 
and  he  had  no  difficulty  in  enlisting  a  company  of 
the  young  men  of  his  county,  young  farmers  or  the 
sons  of  farmers.  He  gained  great  note  as  a  scouter 
and  ranger,  rendering  such  important  service  in 
this  way  to  the  army  that  the  legislature  made  him 
a  special  grant  of  "  fifty  Spanish  milled  dollars " 
as  an  honorable  gift.  He  was  famous  also  for 
Yankee  ingenuity.  A  colonial  newspaper  relates 
an  anecdote  illustrative  of  this.  The  British  gen- 
eral was  sorely  perplexed  by  the  presence  of  a 
French  man-of-war  commanding  a  piece  of  water 
which  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  cross. 

"  General,"  said  Putnam,  "  that  ship  must  be 
taken." 

"  Aye,"  replied  the  general,  "  I  would  give  the 
world  if  she  was  taken." 

"  I  will  take  her,"  said  Putnam. 

"  How  ?  "  asked  the  general. 

"  Give  me  some  wedges,  a  beetle,  and  a  few  men 
of  my  own  choice." 

AVhen  night  came,  Putnam  rowed  under  the  ves- 
sel's stern,  and  drove  the  wedges  between  the  rud- 
der and  the  ship.  In  the  morning  she  was  seen 
with  her  sails  flapping  helplessly  in  the  middle  of 


/ 


/ 


"^        /  CAPTAIXS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

W\c  I 

/ake,  and  she  was  soon  after  blown  ashore  and 

vtured. 

Amono-  other  adventures,  Putnam  was  taken 
prisoner  by  the  Indians,  and  carried  to  his  grave 
/great  scars  of  the  wounds  inflicted  by  the  savages. 
/  He  served  to  the  very  end  of  the  war,  pursuing  the 
/  enemy  even  into  the  tropics,  and  assisting  at  the 
capture  of  Havana.  He  returned  home,  after  nine 
years  of  almost  continuous  service,  with  the  rank 
of  colonel,  and  such  a  reputation  as  made  him  the 
hero  of  Connecticut,  as  "Washington  was  the  hero 
of  Virginia  at  the  close  of  the  same  war.  At  any 
time  of  public  danger  requiring  a  resort  to  arms, 
he  would  be  naturally  looked  to  by  the  people  of 
Connecticut  to  take  the  command. 

Eleven  peacefid  years  he  now  spent  at  home. 
His  wife  died,  leaving  an  infant  a  year  old.  He 
joined  the  church  ;  he  married  again  ;  he  cultivated 
his  farm ;  he  told  his  war  stories.  The  Stamp  Act 
excitement  occurred  in  1765,  when  Putnam  joined 
the  Sons  of  Liberty,  and  called  upon  the  governor 
of  the  colony  as  a  deputy  from  them. 

"  What  shall  I  do,"  asked  the  governor,  "  if  the 
stamped  paper  should  be  sent  to  me  by  the  king's 
authority  ?  " 

"  Lock  it  up,"  said  Putnam,  "  until  we  visit  you 


again." 


"  And  what  will  you  do  with  it  ?  ' 
"  We  shall  expect  you  to  give  us  the  key  of  the 
room  where  it  is  deposited;  and  if  you  think  fit, 


ISRAEL  PUTNAM.  101 

in  order  to  screen  yourself  from  blame,  you  may 
forewarn  us  upon  our  peril  not  to  enter  the  room." 
"  And  what  will  you  do  afterwards  ?  " 
"  Send  it  safely  back  again." 
"  But  if  I  should  refuse  you  admission  ?  ' 
"Your  house  will  be  level  with  the  dust  in  five 
minutes." 

Fortunately,  the  stamped  paper  never  reached 
Connecticut,  and  the  act  was  repealed  soon  after. 
The  eventful  year,  1774,  arrived.  Putnam  was 
fifty-six  years  of  age,  a  somewhat  portly  personage, 
weighing  two  hundred  pounds,  with  a  round,  full 
countenance,  adorned  by  curly  locks,  now  turning 
gray  —  the  very  picture  of  a  hale,  hearty,  good- 
humored,  upright  and  downright  country  gentle- 
man.  News  came  that  the  port  of  Boston  was 
closed,  its  business  suspended,  its  people  likely  to 
be  in  want  of  food.  The  farmers  of  the  neighbor- 
hood contributed  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  sheep, 
which  Putnam  himself  drove  to  Boston,  sixty  miles 
off ,  where  he  had  a  cordial  reception  by  the  people, 
and  was  visited  by  great  numbers  of  them  at  the 
house  of  Dr.  Warren,  where  he  lived.  The  polite 
people  of  Boston  were  delighted  with  the  scarred 
old  hero,  and  were  pleased  to  tell  anecdotes  of  his 
homely  ways  and  fervent,  honest  zeal.  He  mingled 
freely,  too,  with  the  British  officers,  who  chaffed 
him,  as  the  modern  saying  is,  about  his  coming 
down  to  Boston  to  fight.  They  told  him  that 
twenty  great  ships  and  twenty  regiments  would 
come  unless  the  people  submitted. 


102  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

"  If  they  coine,"  said  Putnam,  "  I  am  ready  to 
treat  them  as  enemies." 

One  day  in  the  following  spring,  April  twentieth, 
while  he  was  ploughing  in  one  of  his  fields  with  a 
yoke  of  oxen  driven  by  his  son,  Daniel,  a  boy  of 
fifteen,  an  express  reached  him  giving  him  the 
news  of  the  battle  of  Lexington,  which  had  oc- 
curred the  day  before.  Daniel  Putnam  has  left  a 
record  of  what  his  father  did  on  this  occasion. 

"  He  loitered  not,"  wrote  Daniel ,  "  but  left  me, 
the  driver  of  his  team,  to  unyoke  it  in  the  furrow, 
and  not  many  days  after  to  follow  him  to  camp." 

Colonel  Putnam  mounted  a  horse,  and  set  off  in- 
stantly to  alarm  the  officers  of  militia  in  the  neigh- 
boring towns.  Returning  home  a  few  hours  after, 
he  found  hundreds  of  minute-men  assembled,  armed 
and  equipped,  who  had  chosen  him  for  their  com- 
mander. He  accepted  the  command,  and,  giving 
them  orders  to  follow,  he  pushed  on  without  dis- 
mounting, rode  the  same  horse  all  night,  and 
reached  Cambridge  next  morning  at  sunrise,  still 
wearing  the  checked  shirt  which  he  had  had  on 
when  ploughing  in  his  field.  As  Mr.  Bancroft 
remarks,  he  brought  to  his  country's  service  an 
undaunted  courage  and  a  devoted  heart.  His  ser- 
vices during  the  Revolution  are  known  to  almost 
every  reader.  Every  one  seems  to  have  liked  him, 
for  he  had  a  very  happy  turn  for  humor,  sang  a 
good  song,  and  was  a  very  cheerful  old  gentleman. 

In  1789,  after  four  years  of  vigorous  and  useful 


ISRAEL  PUTNAM.  103 

service,  too  arduous  for  his  age,  he  suffered  a  par- 
alytic stroke,  which  obliged  hiui  to  leave  the  army. 
He  lived,  however,  to  see  his  country  free  and 
prosperous,  surviving  to  the  year  1790,  when  he 
died,  aged  seventy-three.  I  saw  his  commission 
as  major-general  hanging  in  the  house  of  one  of 
his  grandsons,  Colonel  A.  P.  Putnam,  at  Nash- 
ville, some  years  ago.  He  has  descendants  in 
every  State. 


GEORGE  FLOWER. 

PIONEER. 


Tkavelers  from  old  Europe  are  surprised  to 
find  in  Chicago  such  an  institution  as  an  Historical 
Society.  What  can  a  city  of  yesterday,  they  ask, 
find  to  place  in  its  archives,  beyond  the  names  of 
the  first  settlers,  and  the  erection  of  the  first  eleva- 
tor ?  They  forget  that  the  newest  settlement  of 
civilized  men  inherits  and  possesses  the  whole  past 
of  our  race,  and  that  no  community  has  so  much 
need  to  be  instructed  by  History  as  one  which  has 
little  of  its  own.  Nor  is  it  amiss  for  a  new  com- 
monwealth to  record  its  history  as  it  makes  it,  and 
store  away  the  records  of  its  vigorous  infancy  for 
the  entertainment  of  its  mature  age. 

The  first  volume  issued  by  the  Chicago  Historical 
Society  contains  an  account  of  what  is  still  called 
the  "English  Settlement,"  in  Edwards  County,  Il- 
linois, founded  in  1817  by  two  wealthy  English 
farmers,  Morris  Birkbeck  and  George  Flower. 
These  gentlemen  sold  out  all  their  possessions  in 
England,  and  set  out  in  search  of  the  prairies  of 
the  Great  West,  of  which  they  had  heard  in  the 


GEORGE  FLOWER.  105 

old  country.  They  were  not  quite  sure  there  were 
any  prairies,  for  all  the  settled  parts  of  the  United 
States,  they  knew,  had  been  covered  with  the  dense 
primeval  forest.  The  existence  of  the  prairies 
rested  upon  the  tales  of  travelers.  So  George 
Flower,  in  the  spring  of  1816,  set  out  in  advance 
to  verify  the  story,  bearing  valuable  letters  of  in- 
troduction, one  from  General  La  Fayette  to  ex- 
President  Jefferson. 

With  plenty  of  money  in  his  pocket  and  enjoy- 
ing every  other  advantage,  he  was  nearly  two  years 
in  merely  finding  the  prairies.  First,  he  was  fifty 
days  in  crossing  the  ocean,  and  he  spent  six  weeks 
in  Philadelphia,  enjoying  the  hospitality  of  friends. 
The  fourth  month  of  his  journey  had  nearly  elapsed 
before  he  had  fairly  mounted  his  horse  and  started 
on  his  westward  way. 

It  is  a  pity  there  is  not  another  new  continent  to 
be  explored  and  settled,  because  the  experience 
gained  in  America  would  so  much  facilitate  the 
work.  Upon  looking  over  such  records  as  that  of 
George  Flower's  History  we  frequently  meet  with 
devices  and  expedients  of  great  value  in  their  time 
and  place,  but  which  are  destined  soon  to  be  num- 
bered among  the  Lost  Arts.  For  example,  take 
the  mode  of  saddling  and  loading  a  horse  for  a  ride 
of  fifteen  hundred  miles,  say,  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Far  West,  or  back  again.  It  was  a  matter  of 
infinite  importance  to  the  rider,  for  every  part 
of  the  load  was  subjected  to  desperate  pulls  and 


106  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

wrenches,  and  the  breaking  of  a  strap,  at  a  critical 
moment  in  crossing  a  river  or  climbing  a  steep, 
might  precipitate  both  horse  and  rider  to  destruc- 
tion. 

On  the  back  of  the  horse  was  laid,  first  of  all,  a 
soft  and  thin  blanket,  which  protected  the  animal 
in  some  degree  against  the  venomous  insects  that 
abounded  on  the  prairies,  the  attacks  of  which 
could  sometimes  madden  the  gentlest  horse.  Upon 
this  was  placed  the  saddle,  which  was  large,  and 
provided  in  front  with  a  high  pommel,  and  behind 
with  a  pad  to  receive  part  of  the  lading.  The 
saddle  was  a  matter  of  great  importance,  as  well 
as  its  girths  and  crupper  strap,  all  of  which  an 
experienced  traveler  subjected  to  most  careful  ex- 
amination. Every  stitch  was  looked  at,  and  the 
strength  of  all  the  parts  repeatedly  tested. 

Over  the  saddle  —  folded  twice,  if  not  three 
times  —  was  a  large,  thick,  and  fine  blanket,  as 
good  a  one  as  the  rider  could  afford,  which  was 
kept  in  its  place  by  a  broad  surcingle.  On  the  pad 
behind  the  saddle  were  securely  fastened  a  cloak 
and  umbrella,  rolled  together  as  tight  as  possible 
and  bound  with  two  straps.  Next  we  have  to  con- 
sider the  saddle  bags,  stuffed  as  full  as  they  coidd 
hold,  each  bag  being  exactly  of  the  same  weight 
and  size  as  the  other.  As  the  horseman  put  into 
them  the  few  articles  of  necessity  which  they  woidd 
hold  he  would  balance  them  frequently,  to  see  that 
one  did  not  outweigh  the  other  even  by  half  a 


GEORGE  FLOWER.  107 

pound.  If  this  were  neglected,  the  bags  would  slip 
from  one  side  to  the  other,  graze  the  horse's  leg, 
and  start  him  off  in  a  u  furious  kicking  gallop." 
The  saddle-bags  were  slung  across  the  saddle  under 
the  blanket,  and  kept  in  their  place  by  two  looj)S 
through  which  the  stirrup  leathers  passed. 

So  much  for  the  horse.  The  next  thing  was  for 
the  rider  to  put  on  his  leggings,  which  were  pieces 
of  cloth  about  a  yard  square,  folded  round  the  leg 
from  the  knee  to  the  ankle,  and  fastened  with  pins 
and  bands  of  tape.  These  leggings  received  the 
mud  and  water  splashed  up  by  the  horse,  and  kept 
the  trousers  dry.  Thus  prepared,  the  rider  pro- 
ceeded to  mount,  which  was  by  no  means  an  easy 
matter,  considering  what  was  already  upon  the 
horse's  back.  The  horse  was  placed  as  near  as 
possible  to  a  stump,  from  which,  with  a  "  pretty 
wide  stride  and  fling  of  the  leg,"  the  rider  would 
spring  into  his  seat.  It  was  so  difficult  to  mount 
and  dismount,  that  experienced  travelers  would  sel- 
dom get  off  until  the  party  halted  for  noon,  and 
not  again  until  it  was  time  to  camp. 

Women  often  made  the  journey  on  horseback, 
and  bore  the  fatigue  of  it  about  as  well  as  men. 
Instead  of  a  riding-habit,  they  wore  over  their  or- 
dinary dress  a  long  skirt  of  dark-colored  material, 
and  tied  their  bonnets  on  with  a  large  handker- 
chief over  the  top,  which  served  to  protect  the  face 
and  ears  from  the  weather. 

The  packing  of  the  saddle  made  the  seat  more 


108  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

comfortable,  and  even  safer,  for  both  men  and 
women.  The  rider,  in  fact,  was  seldom  thrown 
unless  the  whole  load  came  off  at  once.  Thus 
mounted,  a  party  of  experienced  horsemen  and 
horsewomen  would  average  their  thirty  miles  a  day 
for  a  month  at  a  time,  providing  no  accident  befel 
them.  They  were,  nevertheless,  liable  to  many  ac- 
cidents and  vexatious  delays.  A  horse  falling  lame 
would  delay  the  party.  Occasionally  there  would 
be  a  stampede  of  all  the  horses,  and  days  lost  in 
finding  them. 

The  greatest  difficulty  of  all  was  the  overflowing 
waters.  No  reader  can  have  forgotten  the  floods 
in  the  western  country  in  the  spring  of  1884,  when 
every  brook  was  a  torrent  and  every  river  a  deluge. 
Imagine  a  party  of  travelers  making  their  west- 
ward way  on  horseback  at  such  a  time,  before  there 
was  even  a  raft  ferry  on  any  river  west  of  the  Alle- 
glianies,  and  when  all  the  valleys  would  be  covered 
with  water.  It  was  by  no  means  unusual  for  a 
party  to  be  detained  a  month  waiting  for  the  waters 
of  a  large  river  to  subside,  and  it  was  a  thing  at 
some  seasons  of  daily  occurrence  for  all  of  them  to 
be  soused  up  to  their  necks  in  water. 

Many  of  the  important  fords,  too,  could  only  be 
crossed  by  people  who  knew  their  secret.  I  received 
once  myself  directions  for  crossing  a  ford  in  South 
Carolina  something  like  this  :  I  was  told  to  go 
straight  in  four  lengths  of  the  horse ;  then  "  turn 
square  to  the  right"  and  go  two  lengths  ;  and  finally 


GEORGE  FLOWER.  109 

"strike  for  tlie  shore,  slanting  a  little  down  the 
stream."  Luckily,  I  had  some  one  with  me  more 
expert  in  fords  than  I  was,  and  through  his  friendly 
guidance  managed  to  flounder  through. 

Between  New  York  and  Baltimore,  in  1775, 
there  were  more  than  twenty  streams  to  be  forded, 
and  six  wide  rivers  or  inlets  to  be  ferried  over. 
We  little  think,  as  we  glide  over  these  streams  now, 
that  the  smallest  of  them,  in  some  seasons,  presented 
difficulties  to  our  grandfathers  going  southward  on 
horseback. 

The  art  of  camping  out  was  wonderfully  well  un- 
derstood by  the  early  pioneers.  "Women  were  a 
great  help  in  making  the  camp  comfortable.  As 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers  may  be  said  to  have  discovered 
the  true  method  of  settling  the  sea-shore,  so  the 
Western  pioneer  found  the  best  way  of  traversing 
and  subduing  the  interior  wilderness.  The  secret 
in  both  cases  was  to  get  the  aid  of  women  and  chil- 
dren! They  supplied  men  with  motive,  did  a  full 
half  of  the  labor,  and  made  it  next  to  impossible 
to  turn  back.  Mr.  Flower  makes  a  remark  in  con- 
nection with  this  subject,  the  truth  of  which  will 
be  attested  by  many. 

"  It  is  astonishing,"  he  says,  "  how  soon  we  are 
restored  from  fatigue  caused  by  exercise  in  the  open 
air.  Debility  is  of  much  longer  duration  from  labor 
in  factories,  stores,  and  in  rooms  warmed  by  stoves. 
Hail,  snow,  thunder  storms,  and  drenching  rains  are 
all  restoratives  to  health  and  spirits." 


110  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

Often,  when  the  company  would  be  all  but  tired 
out  by  a  long  day's  ride  in  hot  weather,  and  the 
line  stretched  out  three  or  four  miles,  a  good  soak- 
ing rain  would  restore  their  spirits  at  once.  Nor 
did  a  plunge  into  the  stream,  which  would  wet  every 
fibre  of  their  clothing,  do  them  any  harm.  They 
would  ride  on  in  the  sun,  and  let  their  clothes  dry 
in  the  natural  way. 

It  must  be  owned,  however,  that  some  of  the  win- 
ter experiences  of  travelers  in  the  prairie  country 
were  most  severe.  In  the  forest  a  fire  can  be  made 
and  some  shelter  can  be  found.  But  imagine  a 
party  on  the  prairie  in  the  midst  of  a  driving  snow- 
storm, overtaken  by  night,  the  temperature  at  zero. 
Even  in  these  circumstances  knowledge  was  safety. 
Each  man  would  place  his  saddle  on  the  ground 
and  sit  upon  it,  covering  his  shoulders  and  head 
with  his  blanket,  and  holding  his  horse  by  the 
bridle.  In  this  way  the  human  travelers  usually 
derived  warmth  and  shelter  enough  from  the  horses 
to  keep  them  from  freezing  to  death.  Another 
method  was  to  tie  their  horses,  spread  a  blanket  on 
the  ground,  and  sit  upon  it  as  close  together  as  they 
could. 

Sometimes,  indeed,  a  whole  party  woidd  freeze 
together  in  a  mass ;  but  commonly  all  escaped 
without  serious  injury,  and  in  some  instances  in- 
valids were  restored  to  health  by  exposure  which 
we  should  imagine  would  kill  a  healthy  man. 

When  George  Flower  rode  westward  in  1816, 


GEORGE  FLOWER.  Ill 

Lancaster,  Pa.,  was  the  largest  inland  town  of  the 
United  States,  and  Dr.  Priestley's  beautiful  abode 
at  Sunbury  on  the  Susquehanna  was  still  on  the 
outside  of  the  "  Far  West."  He  had  more  trouble 
in  getting  to  Pittsburg  than  he  would  now  have  in 
going  round  the  world.  In  the  Alleghany  Moun- 
tains he  lost  his  way,  and  was  rescued  by  the  chance 
of  finding  a  stray  horse  which  he  caught  and  mount- 
ed, and  was  carried  by  it  to  the  only  cabin  in  the 
region.  The  owner  of  this  cabin  was  "  a  poor  Irish- 
man with  a  coat  so  darned,  patched,  and  tattered  as 
to  be  quite  a  curiosity." 

"  How   I  cherished   him  ! '     says    the   traveler.  ■ 
"No  angel's  visit  could  have  pleased  me  so  well. 
He  pointed  out  to  me  the  course  and  showed  me 
into  a  path." 

Pittsburg  was  already  a  smoky  town.  Leaving 
it  soon,  he  rode  on  westward  to  Cincinnati,  then  a 
place  of  five  or  six  thousand  inhabitants,  but  grow- 
ing rapidly.  Even  so  far  west  as  Cincinnati  he 
could  still  learn  nothing  of  the  prairies. 

"  Not  a  person  that  I  saw,"  he  declares,  "  knew 
anything  about  them.  I  shrank  from  the  idea  of 
settling  in  the  midst  of  a  wood  of  heavy  timber,  to 
hack  and  to  -hew  my  way  to  a  little  farm,  ever 
bounded  by  a  wall  of  gloomy  forest. " 

Then  he  rode  across  Kentucky,  where  he  was 
struck,  as  every  one  was  and  is,  by  the  luxuriant 
beauty  of  the  blue-grass  farms.  He  dwells  upon 
the  difficulty  and  horror  of  fording  the  rivers  at 


112  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

that  season  of  the  year.  Some  of  his  narrow  es- 
capes made  such  a  deep  impression  upon  his  mind 
that  he  used  to  dream  of  them  fifty  years  after.  He 
paid  a  visit  to  old  Governor  Shelby  of  warlike  re- 
nown, one  of  the  heroes  of  the  frontier,  and  there 
at  last  he  got  some  news  of  the  prairies !    He  says : 

"  It  was  at  Governor  Shelby's  house  (in  Lincoln 
County,  Ky.)  that  I  met  the  first  person  who  con- 
firmed me  in  the  existence  of  the  prairies." 

This  informant  was  the  Governor's  brother,  who 
had  just  come  from  the  Mississippi  River  across  the 
glorious  prairies  of  Illinois  to  the  Ohio.  The  infor- 
mation was  a  great  relief.  He  was  sure  now  that 
he  had  left  his  native  land  on  no  fool's  errand,  the 
victim  of  a  traveler's  lying  tale.  Being  thus  satis- 
fied that  there  were  prairies  which  could  be  found 
whenever  they  were  wanted,  he  suspended  the  pur- 
suit. 

He  had  been  then  seven  months  from  home,  and 
November  being  at  hand,  too  late  to  explore  an  un- 
known country,  he  changed  his  course,  and  went  off 
to  visit  Mr.  Jefferson  at  his  estate  of  Poplar  Forest 
in  Virginia,  upon  which  the  Natural  Bridge  is  situ- 
ated. Passing  through  Nashville  on  his  way,  he 
saw  General  Andrew  Jackson  at  a  horse  race.  He 
describes  the  hero  of  New  Orleans  as  an  elderly 
man,  "  lean  and  lank,  bronzed  in  complexion,  deep 
marked  countenance,  grisly-gray  hair,  and  a  rest- 
less, fiery  eye."     He  adds  :  — 

"  Jackson  had  a  horse  on  the  course  which  was 


GEORGE  FLOWER.  113 

beaten  that  day.  The  recklessness  of  his  bets,  his 
violent  gesticulations  and  imprecations,  outdid  all 
competition.  If  I  had  been  told  that  he  was  to  be 
a  future  President  of  the  United  States,  I  should 
have  thought  it  a  very  strange  thing." 

There  are  still  a  few  old  men,  I  believe,  at  Nash- 
ville who  remember  General  Jackson's  demeanor 
on  the  race  ground,  and  they  confirm  the  record  of 
Mr.  Flower.  After  a  ride  of  a  thousand  miles 
or  so,  he  presented  his  letter  of  introduction  to 
Mr.  Jefferson  at  Poplar  Forest,  and  had  a  cordial 
reception.  The  traveler  describes  the  house  as 
resembling  a  French  chateau,  with  octagon  rooms, 
doors  of  polished  oak,  lofty  ceilings,  and  large 
mirrors.  The  ex-President's  form,  he  says,  was  of 
somewhat  majestic  proportions,  more  than  six  feet 
in  height ;  his  manners  simple,  kind,  and  polite  ;  his 
dress  a  dark  pepper-and-salt  coat,  cut  in  the  old 
Quaker  fashion,  with  one  row  of  large  metal  but- 
tons, knee-breeches,  gray  worsted  stockings,  and 
shoes  fastened  by  large  metal  buckles,  all  quite 
in  the  old  style.  His  two  grand-daughters,  Misses 
Randolph,  were  living  with  him  then.  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son soon  after  returned  to  his  usual  abode,  Monti- 
cello,  and  there  Mr.  Flower  spent  the  greater  part 
of  the  winter,  enjoying  most  keenly  the  evening  con- 
versations of  the  ex-President,  who  delighted  to  talk 
of  the  historic  scenes  in  which  he  was  for  fifty  years 
a  conspicuous  actor. 

George  Flower  and  his  party  would  have  settled 


114  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

near  Monticello,  perhaps,  but  for  the  system  of 
slavery,  which  perpetuated  a  wasteful  mode  of  farm- 
ing, and  disfigured  the  beautiful  land  with  dilapi- 
dation. 

He  had,  meanwhile,  sent  home  word  that  prairies 
existed  in  America,  and  in  the  spring  of  1817  his 
partner  in  the  enterprise,  Morris  Birkbeck,  and  his 
family  of  nine,  came  out  from  England,  and  they  all 
started  westward  in  search  of  the  prairies.  They 
went  by  stage  to  Pittsburg,  where  they  bought 
horses,  mounted  them  and  continued  their  journey, 
men,  ladies,  and  boys,  a  dozen  people  in  all.  The 
journey  was  not  unpleasant,  most  of  them  being- 
persons  of  education  and  refinement,  with  three 
agreeable  young  ladies  among  them,  two  of  them 
being  daughters  of  Mr.  Birkbeck,  and  Miss  An- 
drews, their  friend  and  companion. 

All  went  well  and  happily  during  the  journey 
imtil  Mr.  Birkbeck,  a  widower  of  fifty-four  with 
grown  daughters,  made  an  offer  of  marriage  to 
Miss  Andrews,  aged  twenty-five.  It  was  an  embar- 
rassing situation.  She  was  constrained  to  decline 
the  offer,  and  as  they  were  traveling  in  such  close 
relations,  the  freedom  and  enjoyment  of  the  journey 
were  seriously  impaired.  Then  Mr.  Flower,  who 
was  a  widower  also,  but  in  the  prime  of  life,  pro- 
posed to  the  young  lady.  She  accepted  him,  and 
they  were  soon  after  married  at  Vincennes,  the  re- 
jected Birkbeck  officiating  as  father  of  the  bride. 
But  this  was  not  finding  the  prairies.    At  length, 


GEORGE  FLOWER.  115 

toward  the  close  of  the  second  summer,  they  began 
to  meet  with  people  who  had  seen  prairies,  and 
finally  their  own  eyes  were  greeted  with  the  sight. 
One  day,  after  a  ride  of  seven  hours  in  extreme 
heat,  bruised  and  torn  by  the  brushwood,  exhausted 
and  almost  in  despair,  suddenly  a  beautiful  prairie 
was  disclosed  to  their  view.  It  was  an  immense  ex- 
panse stretching  away  in  profound  repose  beneath 
the  light  of  an  afternoon  summer  sun,  surrounded 
by  forest  and  adorned  with  clumps  of  mighty  oaks, 
"  the  whole  presenting  a  magnificence  of  park  scen- 
ery complete  from  the  hand  of  nature."  The  writer 
adds :  "  For  once,  the  reality  came  up  to  the  pic- 
ture of  the  imagination." 

If  the  reader  supposes  that  their  task  was  now 
substantially  accomplished,  he  is  very  much  mis- 
taken. After  a  good  deal  of  laborious  search,  they 
chose  a  site  for  their  settlement  in  Edwards  County, 
Illinois,  and  bought  a  considerable  tract;  after 
which  Mr.  Flower  went  to  England  to  close  up  the 
affairs  of  the  two  families,  and  raise  the  money  to 
pay  for  their  land  and  build  their  houses.  They 
named  their  town  Albion.  It  has  enjoyed  a  safe 
and  steady  prosperity  ever  since,  and  has  been  in 
some  respects  a  model  town  to  that  part  of  Illinois. 

The  art  of  founding  a  town  must  of  course  soon 
cease  to  be  practiced.  It  is  curious  to  note  how  all 
the  institutions  of  civilized  life  were  established  in 
their  order.  First  was  built  a  large  log-cabin  that 
would  answer  as  a  tavern  and  blacksmith's  shop, 


116  CAPTAINS   OF  INDUSTRY. 

the  first  requisites  being  to  get  the  horses  shod, 
and  the  riders  supplied  with  whiskey.  Then  came 
other  log-cabins,  as  they  were  needed,  which  pio- 
neers would  undertake  to  build  for  arriving  emi- 
grants for  twenty-five  dollars  apiece.  Very  soon 
one  of  the  people  would  try,  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life,  to  preach  a  sermon  on  Sundays,  and  as 
soon  as  there  were  children  enough  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, one  of  the  settlers,  unable  to  cope  with  the 
labors  of  agriculture,  would  undertake  to  teach 
them,  and  a  log-cabin  would  be  built  or  appropri- 
ated for  the  purpose. 

Mr.  Flower  reports  that,  as  soon  as  the  school 
was  established,  civilization  was  safe.  Some  boys 
and  some  parents  would  hold  out  against  it  for  a 
while,  but  all  of  them  at  last  either  join  the  move- 
ment or  remove  further  into  the  wilderness. 

"  Occasionally,"  he  says,  "  will  be  seen  a  boy,  ten 
or  twelve  years  old,  leaning  against  a  door-post  in- 
tently gazing  in  upon  the  scholars  at  their  lessons ; 
after  a  time  he  slowly  and  moodily  goes  away.  He 
feels  his  exclusion.  He  can  no  longer  say :  '  I  am 
as  good  as  you.'  He  must  go  to  school  or  dive 
deeper  into  the  forest." 

All  this  is  passing.  Already  it  begins  to  read 
like  ancient  history. 

George  Flower  survived  until  March,  1862,  when 
he  died  at  a  good  old  age.  Certainly  the  Historical 
Society  of  Chicago  has  done  well  to  publish  the  rec- 
ord he  left  behind  him. 


EDWAED  COLES, 

NOBLEST  OF  THE  PIONEERS,  AND  HIS  GREAT 

SPEECH. 


When  James  Madison  came  to  the  presidency  in 
1809,  he  followed  the  example  of  his  predecessor, 
Mr.  Jefferson,  in  the  selection  of  his  private  sec- 
retary. Mr.  Jefferson  chose  Captain  Meriwether 
Lewis,  the  son  of  one  of  his  Virginia  neighbors, 
whom  he  had  known  from  his  childhood.  Mr. 
Madison  gave  the  appointment  to  Edward  Coles, 
the  son  of  a  family  friend  of  Albermarle  County, 
Va.,  who  had  recently  died,  leaving  a  large  estate 
in  land  and  slaves  to  his  children. 

Edward  Coles,  a  graduate  of  AVilliam  and  Mary 
college,  was  twenty-three  years  of  age  when  he  en- 
tered the  White  House  as  a  member  of  the  Presi- 
dent's family.  He  was  a  young  man  after  James 
Madison's  own  heart,  of  gentle  manners,  handsome 
person,  and  singular  firmness  of  character.  In  the 
correspondence  both  of  Jefferson  and  Madison  sev- 
eral letters  can  be  found  addressed  to  him  which 
show  the  very  high  estimation  in  which  he  was  held 
by  those  eminent  men. 


118  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

Among  the  many  young  men  who  have  held  the 
place  of  private  secretary  in  the  presidential  man- 
sion, Edward  Coles  was  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing. I  know  not  which  ought  to  rank  highest  in 
our  esteem,  the  wise  and  gallant  Lewis,  who  ex- 
plored for  us  the  Western  wilderness,  or  Edward 
Coles,  one  of  the  rare  men  who  know  how  to  sur- 
render, for  conscience'  sake,  home,  fortune,  ease, 
and  good  repute. 

While  he  was  still  in  college  he  became  deeply 
interested  in  the  question,  whether  men  could  right- 
fully hold  property  in  men.  At  that  time  the  best 
of  the  educated  class  at  the  South  were  still  abo- 
litionists  in  a  romantic  or  sentimental  sense,  just 
as  Queen  Marie  Antoinette  was  a  republican  dur- 
ing the  American  Revolution.  Here  and  there  a 
young  man  like  George  Wythe  had  set  free  his 
slaves  and  gone  into  the  profession  of  the  law. 
With  the  great  majority,  however,  their  disappro- 
val of  slavery  was  only  an  affair  of  the  intellect, 
which  led  to  no  practical  results.  It  was  not  such 
with  Edward  Coles.  The  moment  you  look  at  the 
portrait  given  in  the  recent  sketch  of  his  life  by 
Mr.  E.  B.  Washburne,  you  perceive  that  he  was  a 
person  who  might  be  slow  to  make  up  his  mind, 
but  who,  when  he  had  once  discovered  the  right 
course,  coidd  never  again  be  at  peace  with  himself 
until  he  had  followed  it. 

While  at  college  he  read  everything  on  the  sub- 
ject of  slavery  that  fell  in  his  way,  and  he  studied 


EDWARD   COLES.  119 

it  in  the  light  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
which  assured  him  that  men  are  born  free  and 
equal  and  endowed  with  certain  natural  rights 
which  are  inalienable.  He  made  up  his  mind, 
while  he  was  still  a  student,  that  it  was  wrong  to 
hold  slaves,  and  he  resolved  that  he  would  neither 
hold  them  nor  live  in  a  State  which  permitted 
slaves  to  be  held.  He  was  determined,  however, 
to  do  nothing  rashly.  One  reason  which  induced 
him  to  accept  the  place  offered  him  by  Mr.  Madi- 
son was  his  desire  of  getting  a  knowledge  of  the 
remoter  parts  of  the  Union,  in  order  to  choose  the 
place  where  he  could  settle  his  slaves  most  advanta- 
geously. 

While  he  was  yet  a  member  of  the  presidential 
household,  he  held  that  celebrated  correspondence 
with  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  which  he  urged  the  ex-Pres- 
ident to  devote  the  rest  of  his  life  to  promoting  the 
abolition  of  slavery.  Mr.  Jefferson  replied  that 
the  task  was  too  arduous  for  a  man  who  had  passed 
his  seventieth  year.  It  was  like  bidding  old  Priam 
buckle  on  the  armor  of  Hector. 

"  This  enterprise,'*  he  added,  "  is  for  the  young, 
for  those  who  can  follow  it  up  and  bear  it  through 
to  its  consummation.  It  shall  have  all  my  prayers 
and  these  are  the  only  weapons  of  an  old  man.  But, 
in  the  mean  time,  are  you  right  in  abandoning  this 
property,  and  your  country  with  it  ?    I  think  not." 

Mr.  Jefferson  endeavored  to  dissuade  the  }Toung 
man  from  his  project  of  removal.     Mr.  Coles,  how- 


120  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

ever,  was  not  to  be  convinced.  After  serving  for 
six  years  as  private  secretary,  and  fulfilling  a  spec- 
ial diplomatic  mission  to  Russia,  he  withdrew  to  his 
ancestral  home  in  Virginia,  and  prepared  to  lead 
forth  his  slaves  to  the  State  of  Illinois,  then  re- 
cently admitted  into  the .  Union,  but  still  a  scarcely 
broken  expanse  of  virgin  prairie.  He  could  not  law- 
fully emancipate  his  slaves  in  Virginia,  and  it  was 
far  from  his  purpose  to  turn  them  loose  in  the  wil- 
derness. He  was  going  with  them,  and  to  stay  with 
them  until  they  were  well  rooted  in  the  new  soil. 

All  his  friends  and  relations  opposed  his  scheme  ; 
nor  had  he  even  the  approval  of  the  slaves  them- 
selves, for  they  knew  nothing  whatever  of  his  inten- 
tion. He  had  been  a  good  master,  and  they  fol- 
lowed him  with  blind  faith,  supposing  that  he  was 
merely  going  to  remove,  as  they  had  seen  other 
planters  remove,  from  an  exhausted  soil  to  virgin 
lands.  Placing  his  slaves  in  the  charge  of  one  of 
their  number,  a  mulatto  man  who  had  already  made 
the  journey  to  Illinois  with  his  master,  he  started 
them  in  wagons  on  their  long  journey  in  April, 
1819,  over  the  Alleghany  Mountains  to  a  point 
on  the  Monongahela  River.  There  he  bought  two 
large  flat-bottomed  boats,  upon  which  he  embarked 
his  whole  company,  with  their  horses,  wagons,  bag- 
gage, and  implements.  His  pilot  proving  a  drunk- 
ard, he  was  obliged  to  take  the  command  himself, 
upon  reaching  Pittsburg. 

The  morning  after  he  left  Pittsburg,  a  lovely 


EDWARD   COLES.  121 

April  clay,  lie  called  all  the  negroes  together  on  the 
deck  of  the  boats,  which  were  lashed  together,  and 
explained  what  he  was  going  to  do  with  them.  He 
told  them  they  were  no  longer  slaves,  but  free  peo- 
ple, free  as  he  was,  free  to  go  on  down  the  river 
with  him,  and  free  to  go  ashore,  just  as  they 
pleased.  He  afterwards  described  the  scene.  "  The 
effect  on  them,"  he  wrote,  "  was  electrical.  They 
stared  at  me  and  at  each  other,  as  if  doubting  the 
accuracy  or  reality  of  what  they  heard.  In  breath- 
less silence  they  stood  before  me,  unable  to  utter  a 
word,  but  with  countenances  beaming  with  expres- 
sion which  no  words  could  convey,  and  which  no 
language  can  now  describe.  As  they  began  to  see 
the  truth  of  what  they  had  heard,  and  to  realize 
their  situation,  there  came  on  a  kind  of  hysterical, 
giggling  laugh.  After  a  pause  of  intense  and  un- 
utterable emotion,  bathed  in  tears,  and  with  tremu- 
lous voices,  they  gave  vent  to  their  gratitude,  and 
implored  the  blessings  of  God  on  me.  When  they 
had  in  some  degree  recovered  the  command  of 
themselves,  Ralph  said  he  had  long  known  I  was 
opposed  to  holding  black  people  as  slaves,  and 
thought  it  probable  I  would  some  time  or  other 
give  my  people  their  freedom,  but  that  he  did  not 
expect  me  to  do  it  so  soon ;  and  moreover,  he 
thought  I  ought  not  to  do  it  till  they  had  repaid 
me  the  expense  I  had  been  at  in  removing  them 
from  Virginia,  and  had  improved  my  farm  and 
'  gotten  me  well  fixed  in  that  new  country.'     To 


122  CAPTAIXS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

this  all  simultaneously  expressed  their  concurrence, 
and  their  desire  to  remain  with  me,  as  my  servants, 
until  they  had  comfortably  fixed  me  at  my  new 
home. 

"  I  told  them,  no.  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to 
give  to  them  immediate  and  unconditional  free- 
dom ;  that  I  had  long  been  anxious  to  do  it,  but 
had  been  prevented  by  the  delays,  first  in  selling 
my  property  in  Virginia,  and  then  in  collecting  the 
money,  and  by  other  circumstances.  That  in  con- 
sideration of  this  delay,  and  as  a  reward  for  their 
past  services,  as  well  as  a  stimulant  to  their  future 
exertions,  and  with  a  hope  it  woidd  add  to  their 
self-esteem  and  their  standing  in  the  estimation  of 
others,  I  should  give  to  each  head  of  a  family  a 
quarter  section,  containing  one  hundred  and  sixty 
acres  of  land.  To  this  all  objected,  saying  I  had 
done  enough  for  them  in  giving  them  their  free- 
dom ;  and  insisted  on  my  keeping  the  land  to  sup- 
ply my  own  wants,  and  added,  in  the  kindest  man- 
ner, the  expression  of  their  solicitude  that  I  would 
not  have  the  means  of  doinsf  so  after  I  had  freed 
them.  I  told  them  I  had  thought  much  of  my 
duty  and  of  their  rights,  and  that  it  was  due  alike 
to  both  that  I  shoidd  do  what  I  had  said  I  should 
do  ;  and  accordingly,  soon  after  reaching  Edwards- 
ville,  I  executed  and  delivered  to  them  deeds  to  the 
lands  promised  them. 

"  I  stated  to  them  that  the  lands  I  intended  to 
give  them  were  unimproved   lands,  and  as   they 


EDWARD   COLES.  123 

would  not  have  the  means  of  making  the  necessary 
improvements,  of  stocking  their  farms,  and  procur- 
ing the  materials  for  at  once  living  on  them,  they 
would  have  to  hire  themselves  out  till  they  could 
acquire  by  their  labor  the  necessary  means  to  com- 
mence cultivating  and  residing  on  their  own  lands. 
That  I  was  willing  to  hire  and  employ  on  my  farm 
a  certain  number  of  them  (designating  the  individ- 
uals) ;  the  others  I  advised  to  seek  employment 
in  St.  Louis,  Edwardsville,  and  other  places,  where 
smart,  active  young  men  and  women  could  obtain 
much  higher  wages  than  they  could  on  farms.  At 
this  some  of  them  murmured,  as  it  indicated  a  par- 
tiality, they  said,  on  my  part  to  those  designated  to 
live  with  me ;  and  contended  they  should  all  be 
equally  dear  to  me,  and  that  I  ought  not  to  keep  a 
part  and  turn  the  others  out  on  the  world,  to  be 
badly  treated,  etc.  I  reminded  them  of  what  they 
seemed  to  have  lost  sight  of,  that  they  were  free  ; 
that  no  one  had  a  right  to  beat  or  ill-use  them  ; 
and  if  so  treated  they  could  at  pleasure  leave  one 
place  and  seek  a  better ;  that  labor  was  much  in 
demand  in  that  new  country,  and  highly  paid  for  ; 
that  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  their  obtaining 
good  places,  and  being  kindly  treated  ;  but  if  not, 
I  should  be  at  hand,  and  would  see  they  were  well 
treated,  and  have  justice  done  them. 

"  I  availed  myself  of  the  deck  scene  to  give  the 
negroes  some  advice.  I  dwelt  long  and  with  much 
earnestness  on  their  future   conduct  and  success, 


124  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

and  my  great  anxiety  that  they  should  behave 
themselves  and  do  well,  not  only  for  their  own 
sakes,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  black  race  held  in 
bondage ;  many  of  whom  were  thus  held  because 
their  masters  believed  they  were  incompetent  to 
take  care  of  themselves  and  that  liberty  would  be 
to  them  a  curse  rather  than  a  blessing.  My  anx- 
ious wish  was  that  they  should  so  conduct  them- 
selves as  to  show  by  their  example  that  the  de- 
scendants of  Africa  were  competent  to  take  care  of 
and  govern  themselves,  and  enjoy  all  the  blessings 
of  liberty  and  all  the  other  birthrights  of  man, 
and  thus  promote  the  universal  emancipation  of 
that  unfortunate  and  outraged  race  of  the  human 
family."  1 

After  floating  six  hundred  miles  down  the  Ohio, 
they  had  another  land  journey  into  Illinois,  where 
the  master  performed  his  promises,  and  created 
a  home  for  himself.  A  few  years  after,  he  was 
elected  governor  of  the  State.  It  was  during  his 
term  of  three  years  that  a  most  determined  effort 
was  made  to  change  the  constitution  of  the  State 
so  as  to  legalize  slavery  in  it.  It  was  chiefly  through 
the  firmness  and  masterly  management  of  Governor 
Coles  that  this  attempt  was  frustrated. 

When  his  purpose  in  moving  to  Illinois  had  been 
completely  accomplished,  he  removed  to  Philadel- 
phia,  where   he   lived  to  the   age  of  eighty -two. 

1  Sketch  of  Edward  Coles.  By  E.  B.  Waskburne.  Chicago. 
1882. 


EDWARD   COLES.  125 

Though  not  again  in  public  life,  he  was  always  a 
public-spirited  citizen.  He  corresponded  with  the 
venerable  Madison  to  the  close  of  that  good  man's 
life.  Mr.  Madison  wrote  two  long  letters  to  him 
on  public  topics  in  his  eighty-fourth  year.  Gov- 
ernor Coles  died  at  Philadelphia  in  1868,  having 
lived  to  see  slavery  abolished  in  every  State  of  the 
Union. 

I  have  been  informed  that  few,  if  any,  of  his 
own  slaves  succeeded  finally  in  farming  prairie 
land,  but  that  most  of  them  gradually  drifted  to 
the  towns,  where  they  became  waiters,  barbers,  por- 
ters, and  domestic  servants.  My  impression  is  that 
he  over-estimated  their  capacity.  But  this  does  not 
diminish  the  moral  sublimity  of  the  experiment. 


PETEE  H.  BURNETT. 


When  an  aged  bank  president,  who  began  life  as 
a  waiter  in  a  backwoods  tavern,  tells  the  story  of 
his  life,  we  all  like  to  gather  close  about  him  and 
listen  to  his  tale.  Peter  H.  Burnett,  the  first  Gov- 
ernor of  California,  and  now  the  President  of  the 
Pacific  Bank  in  San  Francisco,  has  recently  related 
his  history,  or  the  "  Recollections  of  an  Old  Pio- 
neer ; '  and  if  I  were  asked  by  the  "  intelligent 
foreigner '  we  often  read  about  to  explain  the 
United  States  of  to-day,  I  would  hand  him  that 
book,  and  say  :  — 

"  There !  That  is  the  stuff  of  which  America  is 
made." 

He  was  born  at  Nashville,  Tennessee,  in  1807 ; 
his  father  a  carpenter  and  farmer,  an  honest, 
strong-minded  man,  who  built  some  of  the  first 
log-houses  and  frame-houses  of  what  was  then  the 
frontier  village  of  Nashville,  now  a  beautiful  and 
pleasant  city.  While  he  was  still  a  child  the  fam- 
ily removed  to  Missouri,  then  on  the  outer  edge  of 
civilization,  and  they  spent  the  first  winter  in  a 
hovel  with  a  dirt  floor,  boarded  up  at  the  sides,  and 


PETER  II.  BURNETT.  127 

with  a  hole  in  the  middle  of  the  roof  for  the  escape 
of  the  smoke.  All  the  family  lived  together  in 
the  same  room.  In  a  year  or  two,  of  course,  they 
had  a  better  house,  and  a  farm  under  some  cultiva- 
tion. 

Those  pioneer  settlements  were  good  schools  for 
the  development  of  the  pioneer  virtues,  courage, 
fortitude,  handiness,  directness  of  speech  and  con- 
duct. Fancy  a  boy  ten  years  old  going  on  horse- 
back to  mill  through  the  woods,  and  having  to  wait 
at  the  mill  one  or  two  days  and  nights  for  his  turn, 
living  chiefly  on  a  little  parched  corn  which  he  car- 
ried with  him,  and  bringing  back  the  flour  all 
right. 

'•  It  often  happened,"  says  Governor  Burnett, 
"  that  both  bag  and  boy  tumbled  off,  and  then  there 
was  trouble ;  not  so  much  because  the  boy  was  a 
little  hurt  (for  he  would  soon  recover),  but  because 
it  was  difficult  to  get  the  bag  on  again." 

There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  wait  until  a  man 
came  along  strong  enough  to  shoulder  three  bushels' 
of  corn.  Missouri  was  then,  as  it  now  is,  a  land  of 
plenty ;  for  besides  the  produce  of  the  farms,  the 
country  was  full  of  game,  and  a  good  deal  of  money 
was  gained  by  the  traffic  in  skins,  honey,  and  bees- 
wax. The  simplicity  of  dress  was  such  that  a  mer- 
chant attending  church  one  day  dressed  in  a  suit 
of  broadcloth,  the  aged  preacher  alluded  to  his 
"  fine  apparel,"  and  condemned  it  as  being  contrary 
to  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel.     Fighting  with  fists  was 


128  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

one  of  the  chief  amusements.  At  a  training,  some 
young  bully  would  mount  a  stump,  and  after  imi- 
tating the  flapping  and  crowing  of  a  cock,  cry 
out :  — 

"  I  can  whip  any  man  in  this  crowd  except  my 
friends." 

The  challenge  being  accepted,  the  two  combat- 
ants would  fight  until  one  of  them  cried,  Enough ; 
whereupon  they  would  wash  their  faces  and  take  a 
friendly  drink.  Men  would  sometimes  lose  a  part 
of  an  ear,  the  end  of  a  nose,  or  the  whole  of  an 
eye  in  these  combats,  for  it  was  considered  within 
the  rules  to  bite  and  gouge. 

In  this  wild  country  Peter  Burnett  grew  to  man- 
hood, attending  school  occasionally  in  summer,  and 
getting  a  pretty  good  rudimentary  education.  Com- 
ing of  intelligent,  honest,  able  ancestors,  he  used  his 
opportunities  well,  and  learned  a  great  deal  from 
books,  but  more  from  a  close  observation  of  the 
natural  wonders  by  which  he  was  surrounded. 
His  acute  and  kindly  remarks  upon  the  wild  an- 
imals and  wild  nature  of  this  continent  could  be 
profitably  studied  by  almost  any  naturalist.  It  is 
surprising  that  one  who  has  almost  all  his  life  lived 
on  the  advanced  wave  of  civilization  in  this  coun- 
try should  have  acquired,  among  his  other  posses- 
sions, an  extensive  knowledge  of  literature,  as  well 
as  of  life  and  nature.  Nor  is  his  case  by  any  means 
uncommon. 

When  he  was  nineteen  his  father  gave  him  a 


PETER  H.  BURNETT.  129 

horse  three  years  old,  a  saddle  and  bridle,  a  new- 
camlet  cloak,  and  twenty-six  dollars,  and  his  mother 
furnished  him  with  a  good  suit  of  jeans.  Soon 
after,  he  mounted  his  young  horse  and  rode  back 
to  his  native  State,  and  took  charge  of  the  tavern 
aforesaid  in  the  town  of  Bolivar,  Hardiman  County, 
of  wdiieh  tavern  he  was  waiter,  clerk,  and  book- 
keeper. Here  he  had  a  pretty  hard  time.  Being 
very  young,  gawrky,  and  ill-dressed,  he  was  subject 
to  a  good  deal  of  jesting  and  ridicule.  But  he  was 
fond  of  reading.  Finding,  by  chance,  at  the  house 
of  an  uncle,  Pope's  translation  of  the  Iliad,  he  was 
perfectly  entranced  with  it. 

"  Had  it  been  gold  or  precious  stones,"  he  tells 
us,  "the  pleasure  wrould  not  have  equaled  that 
which  I  enjoyed." 

Nevertheless,  he  fancied  that  his  ignorance,  his 
country  dress  and  uncouth  manners  caused  him  to 
be  slighted  even  by  his  own  relations. 

"  I  was  badly  quizzed,"  he  says,  "  and  greatly 
mortified ;  but  I  worked  on  resolutely,  said  noth- 
ing, and  was  always  at  the  post  of  duty." 

Promotion  is  sure  to  come  to  a  lad  of  that  spirit, 
and  accordingly  we  soon  find  him  a  clerk  in  a  coun- 
try store  earning  two  hundred  dollars  a  year  and 
his  board,  besides  being  head  over  ears  in  love  with 
a  beautiful  girl.  At  first  he  did  not  know  that  he 
was  in  love ;  but,  one  day,  when  he  had  been  tak- 
ing dinner  with  her  family,  and  had  talked  with 
the  young  lady  herself  after  dinner  a  good  while, 

9 


130  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

he  came  out  of  the  house,  and  was  amazed  to  dis- 
cover that  the  sun  was  gone  from  the  sky. 

"  In  a  confused  manner,"  he  relates,  "  I  inquired 
of  her  father  what  had  become  of  the  sun.  He 
politely  replied,  '  It  has  gone  down  ! '  I  knew  then 
that  I  was  in  love.     It  was  a  plain  case." 

In  those  good  old  times  marriage  did  not  present 
the  difficulties  which  it  now  does.  He  was  soon 
married,  obtained  more  lucrative  employment,  got 
into  business  for  himself,  failed,  studied  law,  and 
found  himself,  at  the  age  of  thirty-six,  the  father 
of  a  family  of  six  children,  twenty-eight  thousand 
dollars  in  debt,  and,  though  in  good  practice  at  the 
bar,  not  able  to  reduce  his  indebtedness  more  than 
a  thousand  dollars  a  year.  So  he  set  his  face 
toward  Oregon,  then  containing  only  three  or  four 
hundred  settlers.  He  mounted  the  stump  and  or- 
ganized a  wagon-train,  the  roll  of  which  at  the  ren- 
dezvous contained  two  hundred  and  ninety-three 
names.  With  this  party,  whose  effects  were  drawn 
by  oxen  and  mules,  he  started  in  May,  1843,  for  a 
journey  of  seventeen  hundred  miles  across  a  wilder- 
ness most  of  which  had  never  been  trodden  by  civil- 
ized men. 

For  six  months  they  pursued  their  course  west- 
ward. Six  persons  died  on  the  way,  five  turned 
back,  fifteen  went  to  California,  and  those  who  held 
their  course  towards  Oregon  endured  hardships 
and  privations  which  tasked  their  fortitude  to  the 
uttermost.     Mr.  Burnett  surveyed  the  scenes  of  the 


PETER  II.  BURNETT.  131 

wilderness  with  the  eye  of  an  intelligent  and  sym- 
pathetic observer.  Many  of  his  remarks  upon  the 
phenomena  of  those  untrodden  plains  are  of  un- 
usual interest,  whether  he  is  discoursing  upon  an- 
imate or  inanimate  nature. 

Arrived  in  Oregon,  an  eight  months'  journey 
from  Washington,  the  settlers  were  obliged  to  make 
a  provisional  government  for  themselves,  to  which 
the  Tennessee  lawyer  lent  an  able  hand.  He  re- 
lates an  incident  of  the  first  collision  between  law 
and  license.  They  selected  for  sheriff  the  famous 
Joseph  L.  Meek,  a  man  of  the  best  possible  temper, 
but  as  brave  as  a  lion.  The  first  man  who  defied 
th&  new  laws  was  one  Dawson,  a  carpenter,  scarcely 
less  courageous  than  Meek  himself.  Dawson,  who 
had  been  in  a  fight,  disputed  the  right  of  the  sheriff 
to  arrest  him.     The  sheriff  simply  replied :  — 

"  Dawson,  I  came  for  you." 

The  carpenter  raised  his  plane  to  defend  himself. 
Meek  wrested  it  from  him.  Dawson  picked  up  his 
broad  axe,  but  on  rising  found  himself  within  a 
few  inches  of  Meek's  cocked  revolver. 

"  Dawson,"  said  the  sheriff,  laughing,  "  I  came 
for  you.     Surrender  or  die." 

Dawson  surrendered,  and  from  that  hour  to  the 
present,  Oregon  has  been  ruled  by  law.  In  the 
course  of  five  years  the  pioneer  had  brought  under 
cultivation  a  good  farm  in  Oregon,  which  supported 
his  family  in  great  abundance,  but  did  hot  con- 
tribute much  to  the  reduction  of  those  Tennessee 


132  CAPTAINS   OF  INDUSTRY. 

debts,  which  he  was  determined  to  pay  if  it  took 
him  all  his  life  to  do  it. 

The  news   of   the   gold    discovery  in  California 
reached  Oregon.       He    organized  another   wagon- 
train,  and  in  a  few  months  he  and  another  lawyer 
were  in  the  mining  country,  drawing  deeds  for  town 
lots,  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  at  ten  dollars  a  deed. 
They  did  their  "  level  best,"  he  says,  and  each  made 
a  hundred  dollars  a  day  at  the  business.     Again 
he  assisted  in  the  formation  of  a  government,  and 
he  was  afterwards  elected  the  first  governor  of  the 
State  of    California.      At   present,  at  the    age  of 
seventy-five,  his  debts  long  ago  paid,  a  good  estate 
acquired,  and  his  children  all  well  settled  in  life,  he 
amuses  himself  with  discounting  notes  in  the  Pacific 
Bank  of  San  Francisco.     Every  person  concerned 
in  the  management  of  a  bank  would  do  well  to  con- 
sider his  wise  remarks  on  the  business  of  banking. 
When  a  man  brings  him  a  note  for  discount,  he 
says,  he  asks  five  questions  :  — 

1.  Is  the  supposed  borrower  an  honest  man? 
2.  Has  he  capital  enough  for  his  business  ?  3.  Is 
his  business  reasonably  safe?  4.  Does  he  manage 
it  well  ?   5.  Does  he  live  economically  ? 

The  first  and  last  of  these  questions  are  the  vital 
ones,  he  thinks,  though  the  others  are  not  to  be 
slighted. 


GERRIT  SMITH. 


For  many  years  we  were  in  the  habit  of  hearing, 
now  aucl  then,  of  a  certain  Gerrit  Smith,  a  strange 
gentleman  who  lived  near  Lake  Ontario,  where  he 
possessed  whole  townships  of  land,  gave  away  vast 
quantities  of  money,  and  was  pretty  sure  to  be  f  ound 
on  the  unpopular  side  of  all  questions,  beloved  alike 
by  those  who  agreed  with  him  and  those  who  differed 
from  him.  Every  one  that  knew  him  spoke  of  the 
majestic  beauty  of  his  form  and  face,  of  his  joyous 
demeanor,  of  the  profuse  hospitality  of  his  village 
abode,  where  he  lived  like  a  jovial  old  German 
baron,  but  without  a  baron's  battle-axe  and  hunt- 
ing spear. 

He  was  indeed  an  interesting  character.  With- 
out his  enormous  wealth  he  would  have  been,  per- 
haps, a  benevolent,  enterprising  farmer,  who  would 
have  lived  beloved  and  died  lamented  by  all  who 
knew  him.  But  his  wealth  made  him  remarkable ; 
for  the  possession  of  wealth  usually  renders  a  man 
steady-going  and  conservative.  It  is  like  ballast  to 
a  ship.  The  slow  and  difficult  process  by  which 
honest  wealth  is  usually  acquired  is  pretty  sure  to 


134  CAPTAINS   OF  INDUSTRY. 

"  take  the  nonsense  out  of  a  man,"  and  give  to  all 
his  enterprises  a  practicable  character.  But  here 
was  a  man  whose  wealth  was  more  like  the  gas  to  a 
balloon  than  ballast  to  a  ship ;  and  he  flung  it  around 
with  an  ignorance  of  human  nature  most  astonish- 
ing  in  a  person  so  able  and  intelligent.  There  was 
room  in  the  world  for  one  Gerrit  Smith,  but  not 
for  two.  If  we  had  many  such,  benevolence  itself 
would  be  brought  into  odimn,  and  we  should  reserve 
all  our  admiration  for  the  close-fisted. 

His  ancestors  were  Dutchmen,  long  settled  in 
Rockland  County,  New  York.  Gerrit' s  father 
owned  the  farm  upon  which  Major  Andre  was  exe- 
cuted, and  might  even  have  witnessed  the  tragedy, 
since  he  was  twelve  years  old  at  the  time.  Peter 
Smith  was  his  name,  and  he  had  a  touch  of  genius 
in  his  composition,  just  enough  to  disturb  and  in- 
jure his  life.  At  sixteen  this  Peter  Smith  was  a 
merchant's  clerk  in  New  York,  with  such  a  love  of 
the  stage  that  he  performed  minor  parts  at  the  old 
Park  theatre,  and  it  is  said  could  have  made  a  good 
actor.  He  was  a  sensitive  youth,  easily  moved  to 
tears,  and  exceedingly  susceptible  to  religious  im- 
pressions. While  he  was  still  a  young  man  he  went 
into  the  fur  business  with  John  Jacob  Astor,  and 
tramped  all  over  western  and  northern  New  York, 
buying  furs  from  the  Indians,  and  becoming  inti- 
mately acquainted  with  that  magnificent  domain. 
The  country  bordering  upon  Lake  Ontario  abounded 
in  fur-bearing  animals  at  that  period,  and  both  the 


GERRIT  SMITH.  135 

partners  foretold  Rochester,  Oswego,  and  the  other 
lake  ports,  before  any  white  man  had  built  a  log 
hut  on  their  site. 

Astor  invested  his  profits  in  city  lots,  but  Peter 
Smith  bought  great  tracts  of  land  in  northern  and 
western  New  York.  He  sometimes  bought  town- 
ships at  a  single  purchase,  and  when  he  died  he 
owned  in  the  State  not  far  from  a  million  acre£. 
His  prosperity,  however,  was  of  little  advantage  to 
him,  for  as  he  advanced  in  life  a  kind  of  religious 
gloom  gained  possession  of  him.  He  went  about 
distributing  tracts,  and  became  at  length  so  much 
impaired  in  his  disposition  that  his  wife  could  not 
live  with  him ;  finally,  he  withdrew  from  business 
and  active  life,  made  over  the  bulk  of  his  property 
to  his  son,  Gerrit,  and,  settling  in  Schenectady, 
passed  a  lonely  and  melancholy  old  age. 

Gerrit  Smith,  the  son  of  this  strong  and  per- 
turbed spirit,  was  educated  at  Hamilton  College, 
near  Utica,  where  he  figured  in  the  character,  very 
uncommon  at  colleges  in  those  days,  of  rich  man's 
son ;  a  strikingly  handsome,  winning  youth,  with 
flowing  hair  and  broad  Byron  collar,  fond  of  all 
innocent  pleasures,  member  of  a  card  club,  and  by 
no  means  inattentive  to  his  dress.  It  seems,  too, 
that  at  college  he  was  an  enthusiastic  reader  of  pass- 
ing literature,  although  in  after  days  he  scarcely 
shared  in  the  intellectual  life  of  his  time.  At  the 
age  of  twenty-two  he  was  a  married  man.  He  fell 
in  love  at  college  with  the  president's  daughter,  who 


136  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

died  after  a  married  life  of  only  seven  months. 
Married  happily  a  second  time  a  year  or  two  after, 
he  settled  at  his  well-known  house  in  Peterboro,  a 
village  near  Oswego,  where  he  lived  ever  after.  The 
profession  of  the  law,  for  which  he  had  prepared 
himself,  he  never  practiced,  since  the  care  of  his 
immense  estate  absorbed  his  time  and  ability  ;  as 
much  so  as  the  most  exacting  profession.  In  all 
those  operations  which  led  to  the  development  of 
Oswego  from  an  outlying  military  post  into  a  large 
and  thriving  city,  Gerrit  Smith  was  of  necessity  a 
leader  or  participant,  —  for  the  best  of  his  prop- 
erty lay  in  that  region. 

And  here  was  his  first  misfortune.  Eich  as  he 
was,  his  estate  was  all  undeveloped,  and  nothing 
but  the  personal  labor  of  the  owner  could  make  it 
of  value.  For  twenty  years  or  more  he  was  the 
slave  of  his  estate.  He  could  not  travel  abroad  ; 
he  could  not  recreate  his  mind  by  pleasure.  Al- 
bany, the  nearest  large  town,  was  more  than  a 
hundred  miles  distant,  a  troublesome  journey  then ; 
and  consequently  he  had  few  opportunities  of  ming- 
ling with  men  of  the  world.  He  was  a  man  of 
the  frontier,  an  admirable  leader  of  men  engaged 
in  the  mighty  work  of  subduiug  the  wilderness  and 
laying  the  foundations  of  empires.  He,  too,  bought 
land,  like  his  father  before  him,  although  his  main 
interest  lay  in  improving  his  estate  and  making  it 
accessible. 

In  the  midst  of  his  business  life,  when  he  was 


GEERIT  SMITH.  137 

carrying  a  vast  spread  of  sail  (making  canals,  lay- 
ing out  towns,  deep  in  all  sorts  of  enterprises),  the 
panic  of  1837  struck  kim,  laid  kini  on  kis'  beam 
ends,  and  almost  put  kim  under  water.  He  owed 
an  immense  sum  of  money  —  small,  indeed,  com- 
pared witk  kis  estate,  but  crusking  at  a  time  wken 
no  money  could  be  raised  upon  tke  security  of 
land.  Wken  ke  owned  a  million  acres,  as  well  as  a 
great  quantity  of  canal  stock,  plank-road  stock,  and 
wharf  stock,  and  wken  fifteen  hundred  men  owed 
him  money,  some  in  large  amounts,  he  found  it  diffi- 
cult to  raise  money  enough  to  go  to  Philadelphia. 
In  this  extremity  he  had  recourse  to  his  father's 
friend  and  partner,  John  Jacob  Astor,  then  the 
richest  man  in  North  America.  Gerrit  Smith  de- 
scribed his  situation  in  a  letter,  and  asked  for  a 
large  loan  on  land  security. 

Mr.  Astor  replied  by  inviting  him  to  dinner. 
During  the  repast  the  old  man  was  full  of  anecdote 
and  reminiscence  of  the  years  when  himself  and 
Peter  Smith  camped  out  on  the  Oswego  River,  and 
went  about  with  packs  on  their  backs  buying  furs. 
Wken  tke  clotk  was  removed  tke  terrible  topic  was 
introduced,  and  tke  guest  explained  kis  situation 
once  more. 

"  How  muck  do  you  need  ?':   inquired  Astor. 

"  In  all,  I  must  have  two  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars." 

"  Do  you  want  the  whole  of  it  at  once  ?  "  asked 
tke  millionaire. 


138  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

"  I  do,"  was  the  reply. 

Astor  looked  serious  for  a  moment,  and  then 
said :  — 

"You  shall  have  it." 

The  guest  engaged  to  forward  a  mortgage  on 
some  lands  along  the  Oswego  River,  and  a  few  days 
after,  before  the  mortgage  was  ready,  the  old  man 
sent  his  check  for  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars.  Through  the  neglect  of  a  clerk  the 
mortgage  papers  were  not  sent  for  some  weeks  after, 
so  that  Mr.  Astor  had  parted  with  this  great  sum 
upon  no  other  security  than  a  young  man's  word. 
But  John  Jacob  Astor  was  a  good  judge  of  men,  as 
well  as  of  land. 

Thus  relieved,  Gerrit  Smith  pursued  his  career 
without  embarrassment,  and  in  about  twenty  years 
paid  off  all  his  debts,  and  had  then  a  revenue 
ranging  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  a 
year.  He  gave  away  money  continuously,  from 
thirty  thousand  to  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  a 
year,  in  large  sums  and  in  small  sums,  to  the  de- 
serving and  the  undeserving.  Of  course,  he  was  in- 
undated with  begging  letters.  Every  mail  brought 
requests  for  help  to  redeem  farms,  to  send  children 
to  school,  to  buy  a  piano,  to  buy  an  alpaca  dress 
with  the  trimmings,  to  relieve  sufferers  by  fire,  and 
to  pay  election  expenses. 

"  The  small  checks,"  Mr.  Frothingham  tells  us, 
1  flew  about  in  all  directions,  carrying,  in  the  aggre- 

te,  thousands  of  dollars,  hundreds  of  which  fell 
■iandy  or  gravelly  soil,  and  produced  nothing." 


GERRIT  SMITH.  139 

He  gave,  in  fact,  to  every  project  which  promised 
to  relieve  human  distress,  or  promote  human  hap- 
piness. He  used  to  have  checks  ready  drawn  to 
various  amounts,  only  requiring  to  be  signed  and 
supplied  with  the  name  of  the  applicant.  On  one 
occasion  he  gave  fifty  dollars  each  to  all  the  old 
maids  and  widows  he  could  get  knowledge  of  in  the 
State  of  New  York — six  hundred  of  them  in  all. 
He  gave  away  nearly  three  thousand  small  farms, 
from  fifteen  to  seventy-five  acres  each,  most  of  them 
to  landless  colored  men. 

"  For  years,"  said  he,  "  I  have  indulged  the 
thought  that  when  I  had  sold  enough  land  to  pay 
my  debts,  I  would  give  away  the  remainder  to  the 
poor.  I  am  an  Agrarian.  I  would  that  every  man 
who  desires  a  farm  might  have  one,  and  no  man 
covet  the  possession  of  more  farms  than  one." 

I  need  not  say  that  these  farms  were  of  little 
benefit  to  those  who  received  them,  for  our  colored 
friends  are  by  no  means  the  men  to  go  upon  a  patch 
of  northern  soil  and  wring  an  independent  liveli- 
hood out  of  it.  •  Gerrit  Smith  was  a  sort  of  blind, 
benevolent  Samson,  amazingly  ignorant  of  human 
nature,  of  human  life,  and  of  the  conditions  upon 
which  alone  the  welfare  of  our  race  is  promoted. 
He  died  in  1874,  aged  seventy-seven,  having  lived 
one  of  the  strangest  lives  ever  recorded,  and  having 
exhibited  a  cast  of  character  which  excites  equal 
admiration  and  regret. 


PETER  FORCE. 


Oxe  of  the  interesting  sights  of  the  city  of  "Wash- 
ington used  to  be  the  library  of  "  Old  Peter  Force," 
as  he  was  familiarly  called,  —  Colonel  Peter  Force, 
as  he  was  more  properly  styled.  He  was  one  of 
the  few  colonels  of  that  day  who  had  actually  held 
a  colonel's  command,  having  been  regularly  com- 
missioned by  the  President  of  the  United  States  as 
a  colonel  of  artillery  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
He  might,  indeed,  have  been  called  major-general, 
for  in  his  old  as;e  he  held  that  rank  in  the  militia 
of  the  district.  And  a  very  fine-looking  soldier  he 
must  have  been  in  his  prime,  judging  from  the  por- 
trait which  used  to  hang  in  the  library,  represent- 
ing a  full-formed  man,  tall  and  erect,  his  handsome 
and  benevolent  countenance  set  off  by  an  abun- 
dance of  curly  hair. 

His  library  had  about  the  roughest  furniture 
ever  seen  in  an  apartment  containing  so  much  that 
was  valuable.  As  I  remember  it,  it  was  a  long, 
low  room,  with  streets  and  cross-streets  of  pine 
book-shelves,  unpainted,  all  filled  with  books  to 
their  utmost  capacity  —  a  wilderness  of  books,  in 


PETER  FORCE.  141 

print  and  in  manuscript,  mostly  old  and  dingy,  and 
almost  all  of  them  relating  in  some  way  to  Ameri- 
can history.  The  place  had  a  very  musty  smell ; 
and  as  most  of  its  treasures  were  in  the  •  original 
bindings,  or  without  bindings,  few  persons  would 
have  suspected  the  priceless  value  of  the  collection. 
I  am  acquainted  with  a  certain  library  in  New  York 
of  several  thousand  volumes,  most  of  which  are 
bound  resplendently  in  calf  and  gold,  and  the  room 
in  which  they  are  kept  is  "as  splendid  as  a  steam- 
boat," but  old  Peter  Force  could  show  you  single 
alcoves  of  his  library  which,  at  a  fair  valuation, 
would  buy  out  all  that  mass  of  sumptuosity. 

It  was  not  always  easy  to  find  the  old  gentleman 
in  his  dusty,  dingy  wilderness  ;  but  when  you  had 
discovered  him  in  some  remote  recess  he  would 
take  pleasure  in  exhibiting  his  treasures.  He 
would  take  down  his  excellent  copy  of  Eliot's  In- 
dian Bible,  a  book  so  faithfully  made  in  every  re- 
spect that  I  question  if,  as  a  mere  piece  of  book- 
making,  it  coidd  now  be  matched  in  the  United 
States.  He  lived  to  see  this  rarity  command  in 
New  York  the  price  of  fourteen  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars.  He  would  show  you  forty-one  works,  in 
the  original  editions,  of  Increase  and  Cotton  Ma- 
ther, the  most  recent  of  which  was  published  in 
1735.  He  possessed  a  large  number  of  books 
printed  and  bound  by  Benjamin  Franklin.  He 
had  two  hundred  volumes  of  the  records  of  Colo- 
nial legislatures.      He  could  show  you  a  newspa- 


142  CAPTAINS   OF  INDUSTRY. 

per  of  almost  every  month  —  nay,  almost  every 
week,  since  newspapers  were  first  published  in 
America.  He  had  in  all  nine  hundred  and  fifty 
bound  volumes  of  newspapers,  of  which  two  hun- 
dred and  forty-five  volumes  were  published  before 
the  year  1800.  He  would  show  you  a  collection  of 
more  than  thirty-nine  thousand  pamphlets;  of  which 
eight  thousand  were  printed  before  the  year  1800. 
His  collection  of  maps  relating  to  America  was 
truly  wonderful.  Besides  all  the  early  atlases 
of  any  note,  he  had  over  a  thousand  detached 
maps  illustrative  both  of  the  geography  and  his- 
tory of  America ;  for  many  of  them  were  maps 
and  plans  drawn  for  military  purposes.  He  would 
show  you,  perhaps,  a  pen-drawing  of  date  1779, 
by  a  British  officer,  upon  which  was  written  :  "  Plan 
of  the  rebel  works  at  West  Point."  He  had  also 
several  plans  by  British  officers  of  "  the  rebel 
works  "  around  Boston  during  the  revolution. 

Besides  such  things  (and  he  had  over  three 
hundred  plans  and  maps  of  which  there  was  no 
other  copy  in  existence),  he  possessed  a  surprising 
number  of  books  printed  in  the  infancy  qf  the  print- 
er's art ;  among  them  specimens  representing  every 
year  from  1467  onward.  He  had  more  than  two 
hundred  and  fifty  books  printed  before  the  year 
1600,  so  arranged  that  a  student  could  trace  the 
progress  of  the  art  of  printing  from  the  days  of 
Caxton.  He  had  also  a  vast  collection  of  manu- 
scripts, numbering  four  hundred  and  twenty-nine 


PETER  FORCE.  143 

volumes,  many  of  which  were  of  particular  in- 
terest. The  whole  number  of  volumes  in  the  li- 
brary was  22,529,  and  the  number  of  pamphlets 
nearly  40,000. 

The  reader,  perhaps,  imagines  that  the  collect- 
or of  such  a  library  jnust  have  been  a  very  rich 
man,  and  that  he  traveled  far  and  wide  in  search 
of  these  precious  objects.  Not  at  all.  He  never 
was  a  rich  man,  and  I  believe  he  rarely  traveled 
beyond  the  sight  of  the  dome  of  the  Capitol.  In- 
deed, the  most  wonderful  thing  about  his  collection 
was  that  he,  who  began  life  a  journeyman  printer, 
and  was  never  in  the  receipt  of  a  large  income, 
should  have  been  able  to  get  together  so  vast  an 
amount  of  valuable  material.  Part  of  the  secret 
was  that  when  he  began  to  make  his  collection 
these  things  were  not  valued,  and  he  obtained  many 
of  his  most  precious  relics  by  merely  taking  the 
trouble  to  carry  them  away  from  the  garrets  in 
which  they  were  mouldering  into  dust,  unprized 
and  unknown. 

A  wise  old  New  York  merchant,  long  ago  him- 
self mouldered  into  dust,  used  to  say :  — 

"  Men  generally  get  in  this  world  exactly  what 
they  want. " 

"  How  can  that  be  ?  '  asked  a  youngster  one 
day.  "  Almost  everybody  in  New  York  wants  to 
be  rich,  but  very  few  of  them  ever  will  be.  I 
want  a  million  or  so  myself." 

"Ah,  boy,"  the  old  man  replied,  "you  want  a 


144  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

million  ;  but  you  don't  want  it  enough.  What  you 
want  at  present  is  pleasure,  and  you  want  it  so 
much  that  you  are  willing  to  spend  all  your  sur- 
plus force,  time,  and  revenue  to  get  it.  If  you 
wanted  your  million  as  much  as  you  ivant  pleas- 
ure, by  and  by,  when  you  have  a  bald  head  like 
mine,  you  would  have  your  million." 

Peter  Force  was  a  very  good  illustration  of  the 
old  merchant's  doctrine.  He  got  all  these  precious 
things  because  he  wanted  them  with  a  sustained  pas- 
sion of  desire  for  half  a  century.  There  never  was 
a  time  when  he  would  not  have  gladly  got  up  in  the 
middle  of  the  night  and  walked  ten  miles,  in  the 
face  of  a  northeasterly  storm,  to  get  a  rare  pam- 
phlet of  four  pages.  He  was  a  miser  of  such 
things.  But,  no  ;  that  word  does  not  describe  him  ; 
for  one  of  the  greatest  pleasures  of  his  life  was  to 
communicate  his  treasures  to  others ;  and  he  com- 
municated to  the  whole  American  people  the  best 
of  his  collections  in  massive  volumes  of  American 
Archives.  He  was  a  miser  only  in  the  strength  of 
his  desire. 

"  More  than  once,"  he  said  to  Mr.  George  W. 
Greene,  "  did  I  hesitate  between  a  barrel  of  flour 
and  a  rare  book ;  but  the  book  always  got  the  up- 
per hand." 

To  the  same  friend  he  made  a  remark  which 
shows  that  his  desire  to  communicate  was  quite  as 
strong  as  his  desire  to  obtain. 

"  Whenever,"  said  he,  "  I  found  a  little  more 


PETER  FORCE.  145 

money  in  my  purse  than   I  absolutely  needed,  I 
published  a  volume  of  historical  tracts." 

It  was  interesting  to  hear  the  old  man  relate  how 
this  taste  for  the  treasures  of  history  was  formed 
in  his  mind.  His  father,  who  served,  during  the 
revolution,  in  a  New  Jersey  regiment,  retired  after 
the  war  to  the  city  of  New  York,  and  at  his  house 
the  Jersey  veterans  liked  to  meet  and  talk  over  the 
incidents  of  the  campaigns  they  had  made  together. 
Peter,  as  a  boy,  loved  to  hear  them  tell  their  sto- 
ries, and,  as  he  listened,  the  thought  occurred  to 
him  one  evening,  .Why  should  all  this  be  forgot- 
ten ?  Boy  as  he  was,  he  began  to  write  them  down, 
under  the  title  of  "  The  Unwritten  History  of  the 
War  in  New  Jersey."  He  made  considerable  prog- 
ress in  it,  but  unfortunately  the  manuscript  was 
lost.  The  taste  then  formed  grew  with  his  growth 
and  strengthened  with  his  strength.  At  ten  he 
left  school  forever,  and  went  into  a  printing  office, 
which  has  proved  an  excellent  school  to  more  than 
one  valuable  American  mind.  He  became  an  ac- 
complished printer,  and  at  twenty-two  was  elected 
president  of  the  New  York  Typographical  Society, 
an  organization  which  still  exists. 

Then  the  war  of  1812  began.     Like  his  father 

before  him,  he  served  in  the  army,  first  as  private, 

then  as  sergeant,  then  as  sergeant-major,  then  as 

ensign,  finally  as  lieutenant.     The  war  ended.     He 

went  to  Washington  as  foreman  of  a  printing  office, 

and   at  Washington,  as  printer,  editor,  publisher 

10 


146  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

and  collector,  lie  lived  the  rest  of  his  long  and  hon- 
orable life ;  never  rich,  as  I  have  before  remarked, 
though  never  without  a  share  of  reasonable  pros- 
perity. The  most  important  work  of  his  life  was 
the  publication  of  the  American  Archives,  in  which 
he  was  aided  by  Congress ;  he  furnishing  the  docu- 
ments and  the  labor,  and  Congress  paying  the  cost 
of  publication.  Through  the  nine  volumes  of  this 
work  a  great  number  of  the  most  curious  and  in- 
teresting records  and  memorials  of  American  his- 
tory are  not  only  preserved,  but  made  accessible  to 
all  students  who  can  get  near  a  library.  He  had 
all  the  state-houses  of  the  country  ransacked  for 
documents,  and  a  room  was  assigned  him  in  the 
Department  of  State  in  which  his  clerks  could  con- 
veniently copy  them. 

All  went  well  with  the  work  until  William  Marcy 
became  Secretary  of  State,  whose  duty  it  was  to  ex- 
amine and  approve  each  volume  before  it  went  to 
the  printer.  When  Peter  Force  presented  the 
manuscript  of  the  tenth  volume  to  Secretary  Marcy 
he  received  a  rebuff  which  threw  a  cloud  over  sev- 
eral years  of  his  life. 

"  I  don't  believe  in  your  work,  sir,"  said  the  sec- 
retary. "  It  is  of  no  use  to  anybody.  I  never  read 
a  page  of  it,  and  never  expect  to." 

"But,"  said  Mr.  Force,  "the  work  is  published 
in  virtue  of  a  contract  with  the  government.  Here 
is  the  manuscript  of  the  tenth  volume.  If  there 
is   anything   there  which  you  think  ought  not  to 


me." 


PETER  FORCE.  147 

be  there,  have  the   goodness   to   point   it   out   to 

Yon  may  leave  the  papers,  sir,"  said  the  secre- 
tary. 

He  left  the  papers  ;  but  neither  Marcy  nor  his 
successors  ever  found  time  to  examine  that  tenth 
volume,  though  on  the  first  day  of  every  official 
year  the  compiler  called  their  attention  to  it.  For 
seven  years  he  was  a  suitor  on  behalf  of  his  be- 
loved tenth  volume,  and  then  the  war  occurred  and 
all  such  matters  were  necessarily  put  aside.  He 
was  now  seventy-one  years  of  age,  and  his  great 
desire  was  to  dispose  of  his  library  in  such  a  way 
that  its  treasures  would  not  be  scattered  abroad, 
and  perhaps  lost  forever  to  the  country.  At  length, 
Congress  having  sanctioned  the  enlargement  of 
their  own  library,  their  librarian,  Mr.  Spofford,  in- 
duced them  to  purchase  the  whole  mass,  just  as  it 
stood,  for  one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  the 
collection  now  forms  part  of  the  Congressional 
library. 

Colonel  Force  lived  to  the  year  1868,  when  he 
died  at  Washington,  universally  beloved  and  la- 
mented, in  the  seventy-eighth  year  of  his  age,  en- 
joying almost  to  the  last  two  of  the  things  he  loved 
best  —  his  books  and  his  flowers. 


JOHN  BROMFIELD, 

MERCHANT. 


John  Bromfield's  monument  is  more  lasting 
than  brass.  It  was  he  who  left  to  the  city  of  New- 
buryport,  in  Massachusetts,  ten  thousand  dollars 
for  planting  and  preserving  trees  in  the  streets, 
and  keeping  the  sidewalks  in  order.  The  income 
of  this  bequest  would  not  go  far  in  any  other  sort 
of  monument,  but  it  has  embowered  his  native  city 
in  beautiful  trees.  Every  spring  other  trees  are 
planted,  and,  as  long  as  that  bequest  is  faithfully 
administered,  he  cannot  be  forgotten. 

Nothing  brings  a  larger  or  surer  return  than 
money  judiciously  spent  in  making  towns  and  cities 
pleasant.  It  not  only  yields  a  great  revenue  of 
pleasure  and  satisfaction  to  the  inhabitants  ;  it  not 
only  benefits  every  individual  of  them  every  hour, 
but  it  invites  residents  from  abroad ;  it  is  a  stand- 
ing invitation  to  persons  of  taste  and  good  sense. 
The  wisest  thing  the  city  of  New  York  ever  did, 
next  to  the  introduction  of  the  Croton  water,  was 
the  creation  of  the  Central  Park;  the  one  fea- 
ture which  redeems  the  city  from  the  disgrace  of 


JOHN  BROMFIELD.  149 

its  dirty  streets  and  its  agonizing  tenement  re- 
gion. 

This  John  Bromfield,  merchant,  was  just  such  a 
thoughtful  and  benevolent  man  as  we  should  nat- 
urally expect  to  find  him  from  his  bequest.  He 
belonged  to  a  class  of  merchants  which  is  rapidly 
becoming  extinct.  The  cable  telegraph  and  the 
steam  freight  ship  are  superseding  the  merchants 
of  moderate  capital,  and  are  concentrating  the 
great  business  of  interchanging  commodities  in  the 
hands  of  a  few  houses  who  reckon  their  capital  by 
millions.  Born  at  Newburyport,  in  1779,  he  was 
brought  up  by  excellent  parents  near  Boston,  who 
practiced  the  old-fashioned  system  of  making  him 
hardy  and  self-helpful.  His  mother  used  to  say 
that  when  he  was  old  enough  to  wear  leather  shoes 
she  bored  holes  in  the  soles  in  order  to  accustom 
him  to  wet  feet,  so  that  he  might  be  made  less  li- 
able to  catch  cold  from  that  cause.  This  appears 
to  have  been  a  custom  of  that  generation,  for  it  is 
recorded  of  the  mother  of  Josiah  Quincy  that  she 
would  never  let  him  take  off  his  wet  shoes,  regard- 
ing it  as  an  effeminate  practice. 

On  approaching  the  time  of  entering  college  his 
father  met  with  misfortunes  and  could  not  bear  the 
expense.  Two  aunts  of  his,  who  could  well  afford 
it,  offered  to  pay  his  expenses  in  college.  He 
firmly  declined  the  offer.  The  foundation  of  his 
character  and  career  was  a  love  of  independence. 
He  asked  to  be  apprenticed,  as  the  custom  then 


150  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

was,  to  a  mercantile  house,  and  remained  in  it  as 
long  as  it  held  together.  After  its  failure  he  tried 
for  months  to  obtain  a  clerkship,  but,  not  succeed- 
ing, he  arranged  with  a  carpenter  to  learn  his 
trade.  Just  before  putting  on  the  carpenter's  apron 
an  opening  occurred  in  his  own  business,  and  he 
became  a  merchant.  About  the  year  1801  he  went 
out  to  China  as  supercargo,  and  continued  to  visit 
that  part  of  the  world  in  similar  capacities  for 
many  years,  occasionally  making  small  ventures  of 
his  own,  and  slowly  accumulating  a  little  capital. 
He  had  a  series  of  the  most  discouraging  misfor- 
tunes. In  the  year  1813  he  wrote  to  his  sister 
from  Cadiz  :  — 

"  It  is  a  melancholy  truth  that  in  the  whole  course 
of  my  life  I  never  arrived  at  a  good  market." 

On  that  occasion  everything  promised  well.  He 
had  a  ship  full  of  valuable  goods,  and  the  market 
to  which  he  was  carrying  them  was  in  an  excellent 
condition  for  his  purpose,  but  within  twenty-four 
hours  of  his  port  he  was  captured,  and  detained  ten 
weeks  a  prisoner.  After  the  peace  of  1815,  mer- 
chants could  send  their  ships  across  the  ocean  with- 
out fear  of  their  being  taken  by  English  or  French 
cruisers.  From  that  time  he  had  better  luck,  and 
gradually  gained  a  moderate  fortune,  upon  which 
he  retired.  He  never  kept  a  store,  or  had  any  sort 
of  warehouse,  but  made  his  fortune  by  sending  or 
taking  merchandise  from  a  port  which  had  too 
much  of  it  to  one  that  was  in  want  of  it. 


JOHN  BR0MF1ELD.  151 

On  one  of  his  winter  passages  to  Europe  he 
found  the  sailors  suffering  extremely  from  hand- 
ling frozen  ropes,  as  they  were  not  provided  with 
mittens.  Being  a  Yankee,  and  having  been  brought 
up  to  do  things  as  well  as  read  about  them,  he 
took  one  of  his  thick  overcoats  and  made  with  his 
own  hands  a  pair  of  mittens  for  every  sailor. 

On  another  occasion,  in  the  ship  Atahualpa,  in 
1809,  bound  to  China,  the  vessel  was  attacked  off 
Macao  by  pirates,  in  twenty-two  junks,  some  of 
them  being  twice  the  tonnage  of  the  vessel.  Cap- 
tain Sturgis,  who  commanded  the  vessel,  defended 
her  with  signal  ability  and  courage,  and  kept  the 
pirates  off  for  forty  minutes,  until  the  vessel  gained 
the  protection  of  the  fort.  John  Bromfield,  a  pas- 
senger on  board,  took  command  of  a  gun,  and  sec- 
onded the  endeavors  of  the  captain  with  such  cool- 
ness and  promptitude  as  to  contribute  essentially  to 
the  protection  of  the  vessel. 

In  retirement  he  lived  a  quiet  life  in  Boston, 
unmarried,  fond  of  books,  and  practicing  unusual 
frugality  for  a  person  in  liberal  circumstances.  He 
had  a  singular  abhorrence  of  luxury,  waste,  and  os- 
tentation. He  often  said  that  the  cause  of  more 
than  half  the  bankruptcies  was  spending  too  much 
money.  Nothing  could  induce  him  to  accept  per- 
sonal service.  He  was  one  of  those  men  who  wait 
upon  themselves,  light  their  own  fire,  reduce  their 
wants  to  the  necessaries  of  civilized  life,  and  all 
with  a  view  to  a  more  perfect  independence.     He 


152  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

would  take  trouble  to  oblige  others,  but  could  not 
bear  to  put  any  one  else  to  trouble.  This  love  of 
independence  was  carried  to  excess  by  him,  and 
was  a  cause  of  sorrow  to  his  relations  and  friends. 

He  was  a  man  of  maxims,  and  one  of  them 
was  :  — 

"  The  good  must  merit  God's  peculiar  care, 
And  none  but  God  can  tell  us  who  they  are." 

Another  of  his  favorite  couplets  was  Pope's  :  — 

"  Reason's  whole  pleasure,  all  the  joys  of  sense, 
Lie  in  three  words  :  health,  peace,  and  competence." 

He  used  to  quote  Burns's  stanza  about  the  desir- 
ableness of  wealth :  — 

' '  Not  to  hide  it  in  a  hedge, 
Nor  for  a  train  attendant  ; 
But  for  the  glorious  privilege 
Of  being  independent." 

He  was  utterly  opposed  to  the  way  in  which  busi- 
ness was  then  conducted  —  hazardous  enterprises 
undertaken  upon  borrowed  capital.  The  excessive 
credit  formerly  given  was  the  frequent  theme  of 
his  reprobation. 

How  changed  the  country,  even  in  the  short 
space  of  sixty  years !  In  1825  he  made  a  journey 
from  Boston  to  New  Orleans,  and  his  letters  show 
curious  glimpses  of  life  and  travel  as  they  then 
were.  Leaving  Boston  at  four  o'clock  on  a  Friday 
morning,  he  reached  New  York  at  ten  o'clock  on 
Saturday  morning,   and  he  speaks  of  this  perfor- 


JOHN  BROMFIELD.  153 

mance  with  astonishment.  Boston  to  New  York 
in  thirty  hours  !  He  was  in  New  York  November 
4,  1825,  when  -the  opening  of  the  Erie  Canal  was 
celebrated.  He  did  not  care  much  for  the  proces- 
sion. 

"  There  was,  however,"  he  adds,  "  an  interesting 
exhibition  of  steamboats,  probably  greater  than 
could  be  found  at  any  other  place  in  the  world ; 
say,  from  ticenty-jive  to  thirty^  and  most  of  them 
of  a  large  class." 

He  was  in  the  valley  of  the  Ohio  that  year,  and 
he  spoke  of  it  "  as  the  land  of  cheapness :  "  flour, 
two  dollars  and  a  quarter  a  barrel;  oats,  twelve 
and  a  half  cents  a  bushel ;  corn  and  rye,  twenty 
cents ;  coal,  three  cents.  He  found  all  the  region 
from  Louisville  to  Louisiana  "  one  vast  wilder- 
ness," with  scarcely  any  settlements,  and  now  and 
then  a  log  hut  on  the  banks,  occupied  by  the  peo- 
ple who  cut  wood  for  the  steamboats.  On  the 
prairies  of  Missouri  he  rode  miles  and  miles  with- 
out seeing  a  house.  Indiana  was  an  almost  un- 
broken wilderness  :  corn  ten  cents  a  bushel,  a  wild 
turkey  twelve  and  half  cents,  and  other  things  in 
proportion. 

Nevertheless,  travelers  at  that  day  had  some 
pleasures  which  could  be  advantageously  compared 
with  the  ease  and  comfort  of  the  Pullman  car.  The 
Alleghanies  were  then  crossed  by  open  wagons 
drawn  by  splendid  Pennsylvania  horses,  six  in  a 
team,  gayly  decorated  with  ribbons,  bells,  and  trap- 


154  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

pings.  He  used  to  repeat,  in  a  peculiarly  buoyant 
and  delightful  manner,  a  popidar  song  of  the  day, 
called  "  The  Wagoner,"  suggested  by  the  appar- 
ently happy  lot  of  the  boys  who  rode  and  drove 
these  horses.  Some  readers  may  remember  the  old 
song,  beginning :  — 

"I  've  often  thought  if  I  were  asked 
Whose  lot  I  envied  most, 
What  one  I  thought  most  lightly  tasked 

Of  man's  unnumbered  host, 
I  'd  say  I  'd  be  a  mountain  boy 
And  drive  a  noble  team  —  wo  hoy  ! 
Wo  hoy  !  I  'd  cry, 
And  lightly  fly 

Into  my  saddle  seat  ; 
My  rein  I  'd  slack, 
My  whip  I  'd  crack  — 
What  music  is  so  sweet  ? 
Six  blacks  I  'd  drive,  of  ample  chest, 

All  carrying  high  their  head. 
All  harnessed  tight,  and  gaily  dressed 

In  winkers  tipped  with  red. 
Oh,  yes  !  I  'd  be  a  mountain  boy, 
And  such  a  team  I  'd  drive  —  wo  hoy  ! 
Wo  hoy  !  I  'd  cry  ; 
The  lint  should  fly. 

Wo  hoy  !  Dobbin,  Ball. 
Their  feet  should  ring, 
And  I  would  sing, 

I  'd  sing  my  fal-de-roll." 

We  have  almost  forgotten  that  such  a  gay  mode 
of  crossing  the  Alleghanies  was  ever  practiced  ;  and 
yet  a  person  need  not  be  very  old  to  have  enjoyed 


JOHN  BROMFIELD.  155 

the  experience.  I  myself,  for  example,  can  just 
remember  riding  from  Buffalo  to  New  York  by  a 
line  of  stages  that  came  round  by  the  Alleghany 
Mountains,  and  crossed  the  State  of  New  Jersey, 
passing  through  Morristown.  We  were  just  six 
days  in  performing  the  journey. 

This  excellent  man,  after  a  tranquil  and  happy 
life,  died  in  1849,  aged  seventy,  and  left  consider- 
able sums  to  benevolent  societies.  His  estate  proved 
to  be  of  about  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  value, 
which  was  then  considered  very  large,  and  he  be- 
stowed something  more  than  half  of  it  upon  insti- 
tutions for  mitigating  human  woe.  Ten  thousand 
of  it  he  gave  for  the  promotion  of  pleasure,  and 
the  evidences  of  his  forethought  and  benevolence 
are  waving  and  rustling  above  my  head  as  these 
lines  are  written.  His  memory  is  green  in  New- 
buryport.  All  the  birds  and  all  the  lovers,  all  who 
walk  and  all  who  ride,  the  gay  equestrian  and  the 
dusty  wayfarer,  the  old  and  the  invalid  who  can 
only  look  out  of  the  window,  all  owe  his  name  a 
blessing. 


FREDERICK   TUDOR, 

ICE   EXPORTER. 


Edward  Everett  used  to  relate  a  curious  anec- 
dote of  the  time  when  he  was  the  American  minister 
-  London.  He  was  introduced  one  day  to  an 
Eastern  prince,  who  greeted  him  with  a  degree  of 
enthusiasm  that  was  altogether  unusual  and  unex- 
pected. The  prince  launched  into  eulogiuni  of  the 
United  States,  and  expressed  a  particular  gratitude 
for  the  great  benefit  conferred  upon  the  East  In- 
dies by  Mr.  Everett's  native  Massachusetts.  The 
American  minister,  who  was  a  good  deal  puzzled  by 
this  effusion,  ventured  at  length  to  ask  the  prince 
what  special  benefit  Massachusetts  had  conferred 
upon  the  East  Indies,  wondering  whether  it  was 
the  missionaries,  or  the  common  school  system,  or 
Daniel  Webster's  Bunker  Hill  oration. 

"I  refer.""  said  the  prince,  uto  the  great  quan- 
tity of  excellent  ice  which  comes  to  us  from  Bos- 
ton." 

Mr.  Everett  bowed  with  his  usual  politeness,  but 
was  much  amused  at  the  excessive  gratitude  of  the 
prince  for  the  service  named. 


FREDERICK  TUDOR.  157 

The  founder  of  this  foreign  ice  business,  which 
has  now  attained  such  large  proportions,  was  a  Bos- 
ton merchant  named  Frederick  Tudor,  son  of  that 
Colonel  Williani  Tudor  who  studied  law  under 
John  Adams,  and  who  served  his  country  on  the 
staff  of  General  Washington,  and  afterwards  be- 
came a  judge.  Frederick  Tudor,  who  was  born  in 
1783,  the  year  of  the  peace  between  England  and 
the  United  States,  entered  early  into  business,  be- 
ing at  twenty-two  already  owner  of  a  vessel  trading 
with  the  West  Indies. 

It  was  in  1805  that  the  idea  of  exporting  ice  first 
occurred  to  him  —  an  idea  which,  as  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  relate  in  his  old  age,  was  received  with 
derision  by  the  whole  town  as  a  u  mad  proje 
He  had  made  his  calculations  too  carefully,  how- 
ever, to  be  disturbed  by  a  little  ridicule  :  and  that 
same  year  he  sent  out  his  first  cargo  of  a  hundred 
and  thirty  tons,  to  the  Island  of  Martinique. 

The  result  justified  his  confidence.  The  ice  ar- 
rived in  perfect  condition,  and  he  was  encouraged 
to  follow  up  his  single  cargo  with  many  others 
larger  and  more  profitable.  During  the  war  of 
1812  business  was  somewhat  interrupted  by  the 
Eno-li>h  cruisers,  which  were  ever  on  the  alert  for 
prizes  in  the  West  Indian  waters,  but,  after  peace 
was  declared,  his  trade  increased  rapidly.  He 
supplied  ice  to  Charleston  and  Xew  Orleans  also, 
those  cities  at  first  requiring  but  a  ship-load  each 
per  annum,  although  the  demand  increased  so  rap- 


158  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

idly  that  a  few  years  later  New  Orleans  alone  con- 
sumed thirty  cargoes. 

Almost  from  the  first,  Mr.  Tudor  had  believed 
that  ice  could  be  transported  as  safely  and  profit- 
ably to  Calcutta  as  to  Havana;  but  he  could  not 
bring  others  to  share  this  opinion  —  at  least,  not  to 
the  point  of  risking  money  upon  it.  It  was  not, 
therefore,  until  1834,  twenty-nine  years  later  than 
his  Martinique  experiment,  that  he  sent  his  first 
cargo  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  tons  of  ice  to 
India.  Notwithstanding  a  waste  of  one  third  of 
the  whole  cargo  during  the  voyage,  he  was  able  to 
sell  this  Massachusetts  ice  at  one  half  the  price 
charged  for  the  artificially  frozen  ice  formerly  used 
in  Calcutta  by  the  few  families  who  could  afford 
such  a  luxury. 

The  cold  commodity  which  he  provided  met, 
therefore,  with  a  warm  welcome  from  the  English 
inhabitants.  They  recognized  the  boon  afforded 
them,  and  expressed  their  gratitude  by  raising 
a  subscription  and  presenting  to  the  enterprising 
Yankee  merchant  a  fire-proof  building  in  which  to 
store  his  ice.  He  met  them  in  the  same  spirit  of 
wise  liberality,  and  sold  the  article  at  no  more  than 
a  reasonable  profit  —  about  three  cents  a  pound  — 
which  enabled  the  great  body  of  English  residents 
to  use  the  ice  habitually.  Mr.  Tudor  used  to  boast 
that  in  Jamaica  he  sold  the  best  Wenham  ice  at 
half  the  price  which  an  inferior  article  brought  in 
London ;  and  even  at  Calcutta  he  made  ice  cheaper 


FREDERICK  TUDOR.  159 

than  it  was  in  London  or  Paris.  On  the  passage 
to  the  East  Indies,  ice  is  four  or  five  months  at  sea, 
traverses  sixteen  thousand  miles  of  salt  water,  and 
crosses  the  equator  twice ;  and  on  its  arrival  it  is 
stored  in  massive  double-walled  houses,  which  are 
covered  *by  four  or  five  separate  roofs.  It  has  also 
to  be  unloaded  in  a  temperature  of  ninety  to  one 
hundred  degrees.  Notwithstanding  all  this,  the  in- 
habitants of  the  most  distant  tropical  seaports  are 
supplied  with  ice  every  day  of  the  year  at  the  mod- 
erate price  mentioned  above. 

It  was  Frederick  Tudor  also  who  originated  and 
developed  the  best  methods  of  cutting,  packing, 
storing,  and  discharging  ice,  so  as  to  reduce  the 
waste  to  the  minimum.  I  am  assured  by  a  gentle- 
man eno'ao*ed  in  the  business  that  the  blocks  of  ice 
©  © 

now  reach  Calcutta,  after  the  long  voyage  from  Bos- 
ton, with  a  waste  scarcely  noticeable.  The  vessels 
are  loaded  during  the  cold  snaps  of  January,  when 
water  will  freeze  in  the  hold  of  a  vessel,  and  when 
the  entire  ship  is  penetrated  with  the  intensest  cold. 
The  glittering  blocks  of  ice,  two  feet  thick,  at  a 
temperature  below  zero,  are  brought  in  by  railroad 
from  the  lakes,  and  are  placed  on  board  the  ships 
with  a  rapidity  which  must  be  seen  to  be  appre- 
ciated. The  blocks  are  packed  in  sawdust,  which 
is  used  very  much  as  mortar  is  used  in  a  stone  wall. 
Between  the  topmost  layer  of  ice  and  the  deck  there 
is  sometimes  a  layer  'of  closely  packed  hay,  and 
sometimes  one  of  barrels  of  apples.     It  has  occa- 


160  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

sionally  happened  that  the  profit  upon  the  apples 
has  paid  the  freight  upon  the  ice,  which  usually 
amounts  to  about  ten  thousand  dollars,  or  five  dol- 
lars a  ton. 

The  arrival  of  an  ice  ship  at  Calcutta  is  an  ex- 
hilarating scene.  Clouds  of  dusky  natives  come  on 
board  to  buy  the  apples,  which  are  in  great  request, 
and  bring  from  ten  to  thirty  cents  each,  according 
to  the  supply.  Happy  is  the  native  who  has  capi- 
tal enough  to  buy  a  whole  barrel  of  the  fruit.  Off 
he  trudges  with  it  on  his  back  to  the  place  of  sale, 
or  else  puts  it  on  a  little  cart  and  peddles  the  apples 
about  the  streets.  In  a  day  or  two  that  portion  of 
the  cargo  has  disappeared,  and  then  the  ice  is  to  be 
unloaded.  It  was  long  before  a  native  could  be  in- 
duced to  handle  the  crystal  blocks.  Tradition  re- 
ports that  they  ran  away  affrighted,  thinking  the 
ice  was  something  bewitched  and  fraught  with  dan- 
ger. But  now  they  come  on  board  in  a  long  line, 
and  each  of  them  takes  a  huge  block  of  ice  upon 
his  head  and  conveys  it  to  the  adjacent  ice-house, 
moving  with  such  rapidity  that  the  blocks  are  ex- 
posed to  the  air  only  a  few  seconds.  Once  depos- 
ited there,  the  waste  almost  ceases  again,  and  the 
ice  which  cost  in  Boston  four  dollars  a  ton  is  worth 
fifty  dollars. 

When  Frederick  Tudor  had  been  employed 
twenty-five  years  in  this  trade,  finding  it  inconve- 
nient to  be  separated  from  the  great  body  of  mer- 
chants, he  embarked  again  in  general  mercantile 


FREDERICK  TUDOR.  161 

business,  by  way  of  re-uniting  Himself  to  his  former 
associates.  The  experiment  resulted  in  ruinous 
losses.  In  less  than  three  years  he  was  a  bank- 
rupt, and  owed  his  creditors  two  hundred  and  ten 
thousand  dollars  more  than  he  could  pay.  The  ice 
business  being  still  profitable  and  growing,  it  was 
proposed  to  him  that  he  should  conduct  it  as  the 
agent  of  his  creditors,  retaining  a  specified  sum  per 
annum  for  his  personal  expenses.  To  this  he  ob- 
jected, and  said  to  them  :  — 

"  Allow  me  to  proceed,  and  I  will  work  for  you 
better  than  I  can  under  any  restriction.  Give  me 
the  largest  liberty,  and  I  will  pay  the  whole  in  time 
with  interest." 

He  was  then  fifty-two  years  of  age,  and  he  had 
undertaken  to  pay  an  indebtedness,  the  mere  inter- 
est of  which  was  about  ten  thousand  dollars  a  year. 
By  the  time  he  had  got  fairly  at  work  the  treachery 
of  an  agent  whom  he  had  raised  from  poverty  to 
wealth  lost  him  his  Havana  monopoly,  his  principal 
source  of  profit.  Then  it  became  necessary  to  buy 
land  bordering  the  lakes  from  which  he  gathered 
ice,  and  to  erect  in  Calcutta,  New  Orleans,  and  else- 
where expensive  and  peculiarly  constructed  build- 
ings for  storage.  Occasionally,  too,  he  experienced 
the  losses  and  adverse  incidents  from  which  no  busi- 
ness is  exempt.  Nevertheless,  in  fourteen  years 
from '  the  date  of  his  bankruptcy  he  had  paid  his 
debts,  principal  and  interest,  amounting  to  two  hun- 
dred and  eighty  thousand  dollars,  besides  having 

11 


162  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

acquired  a  large  quantity  of  real  estate,  some  of 
which  had  increased  in  value  tenfold.  Thus,  while 
paying  his  debts,  and  in  the  very  process  of  paying, 
and  while  thinking  only  of  his  creditors'  interest, 
he  had  gained  for  himself  a  very  large  fortune.  He 
continued  an  ice  merchant  for  more  than  fifty  years ; 
or,  as  he  said  himself :  — 

"  I  began  this  trade  in  the  youthful  hopes  attend- 
ant on  the  age  of  twenty-two.  I  have  followed  it 
until  I  have  a  head  with  scarcely  a  hair  that  is  not 
white." 

It  was  this  enterprising  merchant  who  may  be 
said  to  have  created  the  beautiful  seaside  retreat 
near  Boston  called  Nahant,  where  he  invented  many 
ingenious  expedients  for  protecting  trees  and  shrubs 
from  the  east  winds  which  lacerate  that  rock-bound 
coast.  His  gardens  and  plantations  in  Nahant  were 
famous  many  years  before  his  death.  He  died  in 
1864,  aged  eighty-one,  leaving  to  his  children  and 
to  his  native  State  a  name  which  was  honorable 
when  he  inherited  it,  and  the  lustre  of  which  his 
life  increased. 


MYRON   HOLLEY. 


MYRON  HOLLEY, 

MABKE  T-G  ARDEXE  B . 


Fifty  years  ago,  this  man  used  to  sell  vegetables 
and  fruit  from  door  to  door  in  the  streets  of  Roches- 
ter, N.  Y.  He  had  a  small  farm  a  few  miles  out  of 
town,  upon  which  he  raised  the  produce  which  he 
thus  disposed  of.  An  anecdote  is  related  of  a  fine 
lady  who  had  recently  come  to  Rochester  as  the 
wife  of  one  of  its  most  distinguished  clergymen. 
She  ran  up  into  her  husband's  study  one  morning, 
and  said  to  him  :  — 

44  Why,  Doctor,  I  Ve  just  seen  the  only  gentle- 
man I  have  yet  met  with  in  Rochester,  and  he  was 
at  our  basement  door  selling  vegetables.  How  won- 
derful !     Who  is  it  ?     AYho  can  it  be  ?  " 

"  It  must  be  Myron  Holley,"  said  her  husband. 

Another  of  his  lady  customers  used  to  say  that 
he  sold  early  peas  and  potatoes  in  the  morning  with 
as  much  grace  as  he  lectured  before  the  Lyceum  in 
the  evening.  Nor  was  it  the  ladies  alone  who  ad- 
mired him.  The  principal  newspaper  of  the  city, 
in  recording  his  death  in  1841,  spoke  of  him  as 
"  an  eminent  citizen,  an  accomplished  scholar,  and 


164  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

noble  man,  who  carried  with  him  to  the  grave  the 
love  of  all  who  knew  him." 

In  reflecting  upon  the  character  of  this  truly  re- 
markable person,  I  am  reminded  of  a  Newfound- 
land dog  that  I  once  had  the  honor  of  knowing 
near  the  spot  on  the  shore  of  Lake  Ontario  where 
Myron  Holley  hoed  his  cabbages  and  picked  his 
strawberries.  It  was  the  largest  and  most  beautiful 
dog  I  have  ever  seen,  of  a  fine  shade  of  yellow  in 
color,  and  of  proportions  so  extraordinary  that  few 
persons  could  pass  him  without  stopping  to  admire. 
He  had  the  strength  and  calm  courage  of  a  lion, 
with  the  playfulness  of  a  kitten,  and  an  intelligence 
that  seemed  sometimes  quite  human.  One  thing 
this  dog  lacked.  He  was  so  destitute  of  the  evil 
spirit  that  he  would  not  defend  himself  against  the 
attacks  of  other  dogs.  He  seemed  to  have  forgotten 
how  to  bite.  He  has  been  known  to  let  a  smaller 
dojj  draw  blood  from  him  without  making  the  least 
attempt  to  use  his  own  teeth  in  retaliation.  He 
appeared  to  have  lost  the  instinct  of  self-assertion, 
and  walked  abroad  protected  solely,  but  sufficiently, 
by  his  vast  size  and  imposing  appearance. 

Myron  Holley,  I  say,  reminds  me  of  this  superb 
and  noble  creature.  He  was  a  man  of  the  finest 
proportions  both  of  body  and  of  mind,  beautiful  in 
face,  majestic  in  stature,  fearless,  gifted  with  vari- 
ous talents,  an  orator,  a  natural  leader  of  men. 
With  all  this,  he  was  destitute  of  the  personal  am- 
bition which  lifts  the  strong  man  into  publicity,  and 


MYRON  HOLLEY.  165 

gives  hini  commonplace  success.  If  lie  had  been 
only  half  as  good  as  he  was,  he  might  have  been 
ten  times  as  famous. 

He  was  born  at  Salisbury,  Conn.,  in  1779,  the 
son  of  a  farmer  who  had  several  sons  that  became 
notable  men.  The  father,  too,  illustrated  some  of 
the  best  traits  of  human  nature,  being  one  of  the 
men  who  make  the  strength  of  a  country  without 
asking  much  from  the  country  in  return.  He  used 
to  say  to  his  sons  that  the  height  of  human  felicity 
was  "to  be  able  to  converse  with  the  wise,  to  in- 
struct the  ignorant,  to  pity  and  despise  the  intrigu- 
ing villain,  and  to  assist  the  unfortunate."  His 
son  Myron  enjoyed  this  felicity  all  the  days  of  his 
life. 

After  graduating  at  Williams,  and  studying  law 
at  Xew  Haven,  he  set  his  face  toward  western  Xew 
York,  then  more  remote  from  Xew  England  than 
Oregon  now  is.  He  made  an  exquisite  choice  of  a 
place  of  residence,  the  village  of  Canandaigua,  then 
only  a  hamlet  of  log  huts  along  the  border  of  one 
of  the  lakes  for  which  that  part  of  the  State  is  fa- 
mous. The  first  step  taken  by  the  young  lawyer  af- 
ter his  arrival  fixed  his  destiny.  He  was  assigned 
by  the  court  to  defend  a  man  charged  with  murder 
—  a  capital  chance  for  winning  distinction  in  a 
frontier  town.  Myron  Holley,  however,  instead  of 
confining  himself  to  his  brief  and  his  precedents, 
began  by  visiting  the  jail  and  interviewing  the 
prisoner.     He  became  satisfied  of  his  guilt.     The 


166  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

next  morning  he  came  into  court,  resigned  the  case, 
and  never  after  made  any  attempt  to  practice  his 
profession. 

He  was,  in  fact,  constitutionally  disqualified  for 
the  practice  of  such  a  calling.  Having  a  little 
property,  he  bought  out  a  bookseller  of  the  village, 
laid  out  a  garden,  married,  was  soon  elected  county 
clerk,  and  spent  the  rest  of  his  life  in  doing  the 
kind  of  public  service  which  yields  the  maximum 
of  good  to  the  country  with  the  minimum  of  gain 
to  the  individual  doing  it. 

The  war  of  1812  filled  all  that  region  with  dis- 
tress and  want.  It  was  he  who  took  the  lead  in 
organizing  relief,  and  appealed  to  the  city  of  New 
York  for  aid  with  great  success.  As  soon  as  the 
war  was  over,  the  old  scheme  of  connecting  Lake 
Erie  with  the  Hudson  by  a  canal  was  revived.  It 
was  an  immense  undertaking  for  that  day,  and  a 
great  majority  of  the  prudent  farmers  of  the  State 
opposed  the  enterprise  as  something  beyond  their 
strength.  It  was  Myron  Holley  who  went  to  the 
legislature  year  after  year,  and  argued  it  through. 
His  winning  demeanor,  his  persuasive  eloquence, 
his  intimate  knowledge  of  the  facts  involved,  his 
entire  conviction  of  the  wisdom  of  the  scheme,  his 
tact,  good  temper,  and,  above  all,  his  untiring  per- 
sistence, prevailed  at  length,  and  the  canal  was  be- 
gun. 

He  was  appointed  one  of  the  commissioners  to 
superintend  the  construction  of  the  canal  at  a  sal- 


MYRON  HOLLEY.  167 

ary  of  twenty-five  hundred  dollars  a  year.  The 
commissioners  appointed  him  their  treasurer,  which 
threw  upon  him  for  eight  years  an  inconceivable 
amount  of  labor,  much  of  which  had  to  be  done  in 
situations  which  were  extremely  unhealthy.  At  one 
time,  in  1820,  he  had  a  thousand  laborers  on  his 
hands  sick  with  malaria.  He  was  a  ministering 
angel  to  them,  friend,  physician,  and  sometimes 
nurse.  He  was  obliged  on  several  occasions  to 
raise  money  for  the  State  on  his  personal  credit, 
and  frequently  he  had  to  expend  money  in  circum- 
stances which  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  se- 
cure the  legal  evidence  of  his  having  done  so. 

In  1825  the  work  was  done.  A  procession  of 
boats  floated  from  Lake  Erie  to  New  York  Harbor, 
where  they  were  received  by  a  vast  fleet  of  steam- 
boats and  other  vessels,  all  dressed  with  flags  and 
crowded  with  people.  In  the  midst  of  this  triumph, 
Myron  Holley,  who  had  managed  the  expenditures 
with  the  most  scrupulous  economy,  was  unable  to 
furnish  the  requisite  vouchers  for  a  small  part  of 
the  money  which  had  passed  through  his  hands. 
He  at  once  gave  up  his  small  estate,  and  appealed 
to  the  legislature  for  relief.  He  was  completely 
vindicated ;  his  estate  was  restored  to  him ;  but  he 
received  no  compensation  either  for  his  services  or 
his  losses. 

He  returned  to  his  garden,  however,  a  happy 
man,  and  during  the  greater  part  of  the  rest  of  his 
life  he  earned  a  modest  subsistence  by  the  beauti- 


168  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

ful  industry  which  has  since  given  celebrity  and 
wealth  to  all  that  fertile  region.  He  remained, 
however,  to  the  end  of  his  days,  one  of  those  brave 
and  unselfish  public  servants  who  take  the  laboring 
oar  in  reforms  which  are  very  difficult  or  very  odi- 
ous. After  the  abduction  of  Morgan,  he  devoted 
some  years  to  anti-masonry,  and  he  founded  what 
was  called  the  Liberty  Party,  which  supported  Mr. 
Birney,  of  Kentucky,  for  the  presidency. 

One  of  his  fellow-workers,  the  Hon.  Elizur 
Wright,  of  Boston,  has  recently  published  an  inter- 
esting memoir  of  him,  which  reveals  to  us  a  cast  of 
character  beautiful  and  rare  in  men ;  a  character 
in  which  the  moral  qualities  ruled  with  an  easy  and 
absolute  sway,  and  from  which  the  baser  traits  ap- 
peared to  be  eliminated.  He  was  like  that  great, 
splendid,  yellow  king  of  dogs  which  escaped  per- 
fection by  not  having  just  a  spice  of  evil  in  his 
composition. 

Let  me  add,  however,  that  he  was  as  far  as  pos- 
sible from  being  a  "  spoony."    Mr.  Wright  says :  — 

"He  had  the  strength  of  a  giant,  and  did  not 
abstain  from  using  it  in  a  combative  sense  on  a  fit 
occasion.  When  his  eldest  daughter  was  living  in 
a  house  not  far  from  his  own,  with  her  first  child 
in  her  arms,  he  became  aware  that  she  was  in 
danger  from  a  stout,  unprincipled  tramp  who  had 
called  on  her  as  a  beggar  and  found  her  alone. 
Hastening  to  the  house,  without  saying  a  word  he 
grasped  the  fellow  around  body  and  both  arms,  and 


MYRON  EOLLEY.  169 

carried  hhn,  bellowing  for  mercy,  through  the  yard 
and  into  the  middle  of  the  street,  where  he  set  him 
down.  Greatly  relieved,  the  miserable  wretch  ran 
as  if  he  had  escaped  from  a  lion." 

Mr.  Wright  adds  another  trait :  "  Once  in  Ly- 
ons (N.  Y.)  when  there  was  great  excitement  about 
the  '  sin  of  dancing,'  the  ministers  all  preaching 
and  praying  against  it,  Myron  Holley  quietly  said : 
4  It  is  as  natural  for  young  people  to  like  to  dance 
as  for  the  apple  trees  to  blossom  in  the  spring.' 


THE  FOUNDERS   OF  LOWELL. 


We  do  not  often  hear  of  strikes  at  Lowell. 
Some  men  tell  us  it  is  because  there  are  not  as 
many  foreigners  there  as  at  certain  manufacturing 
centres  where  strikes  are  frequent.  This  cannot  be 
the  explanation ;  for  out  of  a  population  of  seventy- 
one  thousand,  there  are  more  than  twenty  thou- 
sand foreign-born  inhabitants  of  Lowell,  of  whom 
more  than  ten  thousand  are  natives  of  Ireland. 
To  answer  the  question  correctly,  we  must  perhaps 
go  back  to  the  founding  of  the  town  in  1821,  when 
there  were  not  more  than  a  dozen  houses  on  the 
site. 

At  that  time  the  great  water-power  of  the  Merri- 
mac  River  was  scarcely  used,  and  there  was  not  one 
cotton  manufactory  upon  its  banks.  At  an  earlier 
day  this  river  and  its  tributaries  swarmed  with 
beaver  and  other  fur-yielding  creatures,  which  fur- 
nished a  considerable  part  of  the  first  capital  of  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers.  The  Indians  trapped  the  beaver, 
and  carried  the  skins  to  Plymouth  and  Boston ;  and 
this  is  perhaps  the  reason  why  the  Merrimac  and 
most  of  its   branches  retain  their  Indian  names. 


THE  FOUNDERS   OF  LOWELL.  171 

Merrimac  itself  is  an  Indian  word  meaning  stur- 
geon, and  of  its  ten  tributaries  all  but  two  appear  to 
have  Indian  names :  Contoocook,  Soucook,  Suncook, 
Piscatagoug,  Souhegan,  Nashua,  Concord,  Spiggot, 
Shawshine,  and  Powow. 

Besides  these  there  are  the  two  rivers  which 
unite  to  form  it,  the  names  of  which  are  still  more 
peculiar :  Pemigewassett  and  Winnepiseogee.  The 
most  remarkable  thing  with  regard  to  these  names 
is,  that  the  people  who  live  near  see  nothing  re- 
markable in  them,  and  pronounce  them  as  naturally 
as  New  Yorkers  do  Bronx  and  Croton.  It  is  diffi- 
cult for  us  to  imagine  a  lover  singing,  or  saying, 
"  Meet  me  by  the  Pemigewasset,  love,"  or  asking 
her  to  take  a  row  with  him  on  the  lovely  Winnepi- 
seogee. But  lovers  do  such  things  up  there ;  and 
beautiful  rivers  they  are,  flowing  between  moun- 
tains, and  breaking  occasionally  into  falls  and 
rapids.  The  Merrimac,  also,  loses  its  serenity 
every  few  miles,  and  changes  from  a  tranquil  river 
into  a  —  water-power. 

In  November,  1821,  a  light  snow  already  cover- 
ing the  ground,  six  strangers  stood  on  the  banks  of 
the  Merrimac  upon  the  site  of  the  present  city  of 
Lowell.  A  canal  had  been  dug  around  the  falls 
for  purposes  of  navigation,  and  these  gentlemen 
were  there  with  a  view  to  the  purchase  of  the  dam 
and  canal,  and  erecting  upon  the  site  a  cotton  mill. 
Their  names  were  Patrick  T.  Jackson,  Kirk  Boott, 
Warren  Dutton,  Paul  Moody,  John  W.  Boott,  and 


172  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

Nathan  Appleton ;  all  men  of  capital  or  skill,  and 
since  well  known  as  the  founders  of  a  great  na- 
tional industry.  They  walked  about  the  country, 
observed  the  capabilities  of  the  river,  and  made  up 
their  minds  that  that  was  the  place  for  their  new 
enterprise. 

"  Some  of  us,"  said  one  of  the  projectors,  "  may 
live  to  see  this  place  contain  twenty  thousand  in- 
habitants." 

The  enterprise  was  soon  begun.  In  1826  the 
town  was  incorporated  and  named.  It  is  always 
difficult  to  name  a  new  place  or  a  new  baby.  Mr. 
Nathan  Appleton  met  one  of  the  other  proprietors, 
who  told  him  that  the  legislature  was  ready  to  in- 
corporate the  town,  and  it  only  remained  for  them 
to  fill  the  blank  left  in  the  act  for  the  name. 

"  The  question,"  said  he,  "  is  narrowed  down  to 
two,  Lowell  or  Derby." 

"Then,"  said  Mr.  Appleton,  "Lowell,  by  all 
means." 

It  was  so  named  from  Mr.  Francis  C.  Lowell, 
who  originated  the  idea.  He  had  visited  England 
and  Scotland  in  1811,  and  while  there  had  observed 
and  studied  the  manufacture  of  cotton  fabrics,  which 
in  a  few  years  had  come  to  be  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant industries  of  the  British  Empire.  The  war 
of  1812  intervened;  but  before  the  return  of  peace 
Mr.  Lowell  took  measures  for  starting  the  business 
in  New  England.  A  company  was  formed  with  a 
capital  of  four  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  Mr. 


THE  FOUNDERS  OF  LOWELL.  173 

■ 

Lowell  himself  undertook  the  construction  of  the 
power  loom,  which  was  still  guarded  in  Europe  as 
a  precious  secret.  After  having  obtained  all  possi- 
ble information  about  it,  he  shut  himself  up  in  a 
Boston  store  with  a  man  to  turn  his  crank,  and  ex- 
perimented for  months  till  he  had  conquered  the 
difficulties.  In  the  fall  of  1814  the  machine  was 
ready  for  inspection. 

"  I  well  recollect,"  says  Mr.  Appleton,  "the  state 
of  admiration  and  satisfaction  with  which  we  sat  by 
the  hour  watching  the  beautiful  movement  of  this 
new  and  wonderful  machine,  destined  as  it  evi- 
dently was  to  change  the  character  of  all  textile 
industry." 

In  a  few  months  the  first  manufactory  was  estab- 
lished in  Waltham,  with  the  most  wonderful  suc- 
cess. Henry  Clay  visited  it,  and  gave  a  glow- 
ing account  of  it  in  one  of  his  speeches,  using  its 
success  as  an  argument  against  free  trade.  It  is 
difficult  to  see  what  protection  the  new  manufac- 
ture required.  The  company  sold  its  cotton  cloth 
at  thirty  cents  a  yard,  and  they  afterwards  found 
that  they  could  sell  it  without  loss  at  less  than 
seven  cents.  The  success  of  the  Waltham  estab- 
lishment led  to  the  founding  of  Lowell,  Lawrence, 
Nashua,  and  Manchester.  There  are  now  at  Lowell 
eighty  mills  and  factories,  in  which  are  employed 
sixteen  thousand  men  and  women,  who  produce 
more  than  three  million  yards  of  fabric  every  week. 
The  city  has  a  solid  inviting  appearance,  and  there 


174  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

are  in  the  outskirts  many  beautiful  and  command- 
ing sites  for  residences,  which  are  occupied  by  men 
of  wealth. 

But  now  as  to  the  question  above  proposed. 
Why  are  the  operatives  at  Lowell  less  discontented 
than  elsewhere  ?  It  is  in  part  because  the  able 
men  who  founded  the  place  bestowed  some  thought 
upon  the  welfare  of  the  human  beings  whom  they 
were  about  to  summon  to  the  spot.  They  did  not, 
it  is  true,  bestow  thought  enough  ;  but  they  thought 
of  it,  and  they  made  some  provision  for  proper  and 
pleasant  life  in  their  proposed  town.  Mr.  Apple- 
ton,  who  many  years  ago  took  the  trouble  to  record 
these  circumstances,  mentions  that  the  probable 
effect  of  this  new  kind  of  industry  upon  the  charac- 
ter of  the  people  was  most  attentively  considered 
by  the  founders.  In  Europe,  as  most  of  them 
had  personally  seen,  the  operatives  were  unintel- 
ligent and  immoral,  made  so  by  fifteen  or  sixteen 
hours'  labor  a  day,  and  a  beer-shop  on  every  cor- 
ner. They  caused  suitable  boarding-houses  to  be 
built,  which  were  placed  under  the  charge  of  wo- 
men known  to  be  competent  and  respectable.  Land 
was  assigned  and  money  subscribed  for  schools, 
for  churches,  for  a  hospital.  Systematic  care  was 
taken  to  keep  away  immoral  persons,  and  rules 
were  established,  some  of  which  carried  the  super- 
vision of  morals  and  manners  perhaps  too  far. 
The  consequence  was  that  the  daughters  of  far- 
mers, young  women  well  educated   and  well-bred, 


THE  FOUNDERS  OF  LOWELL.  175 

came  from  all  quarters,  and  found  the  factory  life 
something  more  than  endurable. 

But  for  one  thing  they  would  have  found  it  sal- 
utary and  agreeable.  The  plague  of  factory  life  is 
the  extreme  monotony  of  the  employment,  and  this 
is  aggravated  in  some  mills  by  high  temperature 
and  imperfect  ventilation.  At  that  time  the  laws 
of  health  were  so  little  understood  that  few  persons 
saw  any  hardship  in  young  girls  standing  on  their 
feet  thirteen,  fourteen,  fifteen,  and  even  sixteen 
hours  a  day !  It  was  considered  a  triumph  when 
the  working-day  was  reduced  to  thirteen  hours. 
Thirty  years  ago,  after  prodigious  agitation,  the 
day  was  fixed  at  eleven  hours.  That  was  too 
much.  It  has  now  been  reduced  to  ten  hours  ; 
but  it  is  yet  to  be  shown  that  a  woman  of  aver- 
age strength  and  stamina  can  work  in  a  cotton 
mill  ten  hours  a  day  for  years  at  a  stretch,  without 
deteriorating  in  body,  in  mind,  or  in  character. 

During  the  first  years  the  girls  would  come  from 
the  country,  work  in  the  mill  a  few  months,  or  two  or 
three  years,  and  then  return  to  their  country  homes. 
Thus  the  injury  was  less  ruinous  than  it  might 
have  been.  The  high  character  of  the  Lowell  op- 
eratives was  much  spoken  of  in  the  early  day. 
Some  of  the  boarding-houses  contained  pianos  upon 
which  the  boarders  played  in  the  evening,  and 
there  was  a  magazine  called  the  "  Lowell  Offering," 
to  which  they  contributed  all  the  articles.  These 
things  seemed  so  astonishing  that  Charles  Dickens, 


176  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

when  he  was  first  in  the  United  States,  in  1842, 
visited  Lowell  to  behold  the  marvels  for  himself. 
How  changed  the  world  in  forty  years  !  Few  per- 
sons now  living  can  remember  even  the  cars  of 
forty  years  ago,  when  there  were  but  a  few  hundred 
miles  of  railroad  in  the  United  States. 

The  train  which  conveyed  the  great  novelist 
from  Boston  to  Lowell  consisted  of  three  cars,  a 
gentlemen's  car  in  which  smoking  was  allowed,  a 
ladies'  car  in  which  no  one  smoked,  and  "  a  negro 
car,"  which  the  author  describes  as  a  "  great,  blun- 
dering, clumsy  chest,  such  as  Gulliver  put  to  sea  in 
from  the  kingdom  of  Brobdingnag."  Where  is 
now  the  negro  car  ?  It  is  gone  to  rejoin  its  elder 
brother,  the  negro  pew.  The  white  people's  cars 
he  describes  as  "  large,  shabby  omnibuses,"  with  a 
red-hot  stove  in  the  middle,  and  the  air  insuffer- 
ably close. 

He  happened  to  arrive  at  his  first  factory  in 
Lowell  just  as  the  dinner  hour  was  over,  and  the 
girls  were  trooping  up  the  stairs  as  he  himself  as- 
cended. How  strange  his  comments  now  appear 
to  us  !  If  we  read  them  by  the  light  of  to-day,  we 
find  them  patronizing  and  snobbish;  but  at  that 
day  they  were  far  in  advance  of  the  feelings  and 
opinions  of  the  comfortable  class.  He  observed 
that  the  girls  were  all  well  -  dressed,  extremely 
clean,  with  serviceable  bonnets,  good  warm  cloaks 
and  shawls,  and  their  feet  well  protected  both 
against  wet  and  cold.     He  felt  it  necessaiy,  as  he 


THE  FOUNDERS  OF  LOWELL.  177 

was  writing  for  English  readers,  to  apologize  for 
their  pleasant  appearance. 

"  To  my  thinking,"  he  remarks,  "  they  were  not 
dressed  above  their  condition  ;  for  I  like  to  see  the 
humbler  classes  of  society  careful  of  their  dress 
and  appearance,  and  even,  if  they  please,  decorated 
with  such  little  trinkets  as  come  within  the  com- 
pass of  their  means." 

He  alluded  to  the  "  Lowell  Offering,"  a  monthly 
magazine,  "  written,  edited,  and  published,"  as  its 
cover  informed  the  public,  "  by  female  operatives 
employed  in  the  mills."  Mr.  Dickens  praised 
this  magazine  in  an  extremely  ingenious  manner. 
He  could  not  claim  that  the  literature  of  the  work 
was  of  a  very  high  order,  because  that  would  not 
have  been  true.     He  said :  — 

"  Its  merits  will  compare  advantageously  with  a 
great  many  English  Annuals." 

That  is  really  an  exquisite  touch  of  satire.  He 
went  on  to  say  :  — 

"  Many  of  its  tales  inculcate  habits  of  self-denial 
and  contentment,  and  teach  good  doctrines  of  en- 
larged benevolence.  A  strong  feeling  for  the  beau- 
ties of  nature,  as  displayed  in  the  solitudes  the 
writers  have  left  at  home,  breathes  through  its 
pages  like  wholesome  village  air.  .  .  .  It  has  very 
scant  allusion  to  fine  clothes,  fine  marriages,  fine 
houses,  or  fine  life." 

I  am  so  happy  as  to  possess  a  number  of  the 
"Lowell  Offering,"  for  August,  1844.     It  begins 


178  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

with  a  pretty  little  story  called  "  A  Flower  Dream," 
which  confirms  Mr.  Dickens's  remarks.  There  are 
two  or  three  amiable  pieces  of  poetry,  a  very  moral 
article  upon  "Napoleon  at  St.  Helena,"  one  upon 
the  tyranny  of  fashion,  in  which  young  ladies  are 
advised  to  "  lay  aside  all  glittering  ornaments,  all 
expensive  trappings,"  and  to  present  instead  the 
charms  of  a  cultivated  mind  and  good  disposition. 
There  is  one  article  in  the  number  which  Mr.  Dick- 
ens would  have  enjoyed  for  its  own  sake.  It  is  "  A 
Letter  from  Susan ;  "  Susan  being  a  "  mill  girl," 
as  she  honestly  calls  herself.  She  describes  the  life 
of  the  girls  in  the  mill  and  in  the  boarding-house. 
She  gives  an  excellent  character  both  to  her  com- 
panions and  to  the  overseers,  one  of  whom  had 
lately  given  her  a  bouquet  from  his  own  garden  ; 
and  the  mills  themselves,  she  remarks,  were  sur- 
rounded with  green  lawns  kept  fresh  all  the  sum- 
mer bv  irrigation,  with  beds  of  flowers  to  relieve 
their  monotony. 

According  to  Susan,  the  mills  themselves  were 
pleasant  places,  the  rooms  being  "  high,  very  light, 
kept  nicely  whitewashed,  and  extremely  neat,  with 
many  plants  in  the  window- seats,  and  white  cotton 
curtains  to  the  windows." 

"  Then,"  says  Susan,  "  the  girls  dress  so  neatly, 
and  are  so  pretty.  The  mill  girls  are  the  prettiest 
in  the  city.  You  wonder  how  they  can  keep  so 
neat.  Why  not  ?  There  are  no  restrictions  as  to 
the  number  of  pieces  to  be  washed  in  the  boarding- 


THE  FOUNDERS  OF  LOWELL.  179 

houses.  You  say  you  do  not  see  how  we  can  have 
so  many  conveniences  and  comforts  at  the  price 
we  pay  for  board.  You  must  remember  that  the 
boarding-houses  belong  to  the  company,  and  are  let 
to  the  tenants  far  below  the  usual  city  rents." 

Much  has  changed  in  Lowell  since  that  day,  and 
it  is  probable  that  few  mill  girls  would  now  describe 
their  life  as  favorably  as  Susan  did  in  1844.  Never- 
theless, the  present  generation  of  operatives  derive 
much  good  from  the  thoughtful  and  patriotic  care 
of  the  founders.  More  requires  to  be  done.  A 
large  public  park  should  be  laid  out  in  each  of 
those  great  centres  of  industry.  The  abodes  of  the 
operatives  in  many  instances  are  greatly  in  need  of 
improvement.  There  is  need  of  half-day  schools 
for  children  who  are  obliged  to  assist  their  parents. 
Wherever  it  is  possible,  there  should  be  attached  to 
every  house  a  piece  of  groimd  for  a  garden.  The 
saying  of  the  old  philosopher  is  as  true  now  as  it 
was  in  the  simple  old  times  when  it  was  uttered : 
"  The  way  to  have  good  servants  is  to  be  a  good 
master." 


EGBERT  OWEN, 

COTTOX-MANUFACTURER. 


The  agitation  of  labor  questions  recalls  attention 
to  Robert  Owen,  who  spent  a  great  fortune  and  a 
Ion 2f  life  in  endeavoring  to  show  workingmen  how 
to  improve  their  condition  by  cooperation.  A  more 
benevolent  spirit  never  animated  a  human  form 
than  his ;  his  very  failures  were  more  creditable 
than  some  of  the  successes  which  history  vaunts. 

At  the  age  of  ten  years,  Robert  Owen,  the  son 
of  a  Welsh  saddler,  arrived  in  London,  consigned 
to  the  care  of  an  elder  brother,  to  push  his  fortune. 
His  school-days  were  over,  and  there  was  nothing 
for  him  but  hard  work  in  some  lowly  occupation. 
At  the  end  of  six  weeks  he  found  a  situation  as 
shop-boy  in  a  dry-goods  store  at  Stamford,  in  the 
east  of  England ;  wages,  for  the  first  year,  his 
board  and  lodging ;  for  the  second  year,  eight 
pounds  in  addition ;  and  a  gradual  increase  there- 
after. In  this  employment  he  remained  four  years, 
and  then,  although  very  happily  situated,  he  made 
up  his  mind  to  return  to  London  to  push  his  for- 
tune more  rapidly. 


ROBERT  OWEN.  181 

Being  large  and  forward  for  his  age,  a  hand- 
some, prompt,  active,  engaging  youth,  he  soon  ob- 
tained a  situation  in  a  dry-goods  store  on  old  Lon- 
don Bridge,  at  a  salary  of  twenty-five  pounds  a  year 
and  his  board.  But  he  had  to  work  unreasonably 
hard,  often  being  obliged  to  sit  up  half  the  night 
putting  away  the  goods,  and  sometimes  going  to 
bed  so  tired  that  he  could  hardly  crawl  up  stairs. 
All  the  clerks  had  to  be  in  the  store  ready  for  busi- 
ness at  eight  in  the  morning.  This  was  about  the 
year  1786,  when  men  were  accustomed  to  have 
their  hair  elaborately  arranged. 

"  Boy  as  I  was,"  he  once  wrote,  "  I  had  to  wait 
my  turn  for  the  hair-dresser  to  powder  and  poma- 
tum and  curl  my  hair  —  two  large  curls  on  each 
side  and  a  stiff  pigtail.  And  until  this  was  all 
nicely  done  no  one  thought  of  presenting  himself 
behind  the  counter." 

The  lad  endured  this  painful  servitude  for  six 
months,  at  the  end  of  which  he  found  a  better  situa- 
tion in  Manchester,  the  seat  of  the  rising  cotton 
trade,  and  there  he  remained  until  he  was  nearly 
nineteen.  He  appeared  to  have  had  no  "  wild  oats  ': 
to  sow,  being  at  all  times  highly  valued  by  his  em- 
ployers, and  acquiring  in  their  service  habits  of 
careful  industry,  punctuality,  and  orderliness.  He 
must  have  been  a  young  man  both  of  extraordinary 
virtues  and  more  extraordinary  abilities  ;  for  when 
he  was  but  nineteen,  one  of  his  masters  offered  to 
take  him  as  an  equal  partner,  to  furnish  all  the 


182  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

capital,  and  leave  him  the  whole  business  in  a  few 
years.  There  was  also  an  agreeable  niece  in  the 
family,  whose  affections  he  had  gained  without 
knowing  it. 

"If  I  had  accepted,"  he  says,  "I  should  most 
likely  have  married  the  niece,  and  lived  and  died 
a  rich  Stamford  linen-draper." 

I  doubt  it.  I  do  not  belfeve  that  the  best  shop 
in  Christendom  could  have  held  him  long.  When 
he  declined  this  offer  he  was  already  in  business 
for  himself  manufacturing  cotton  machinery.  This 
business  was  a  failure,  his  partner  proving  incom- 
petent ;  and  he  abandoned  the  enterprise  in  a  few 
months,  taking,  as  his  share  of  the  stock,  three 
cotton-spinning  machines.  With  these  he  began 
business  for  himself  as  a  cotton  spinner,  hiring 
three  men  to  work  his  machines,  while  he  superin- 
tended the  establishment.  He  made  about  thirty 
dollars  a  week  profit,  and  was  going  along  at  this 
rate,  not  ill  satisfied  with  his  lot,  when  he  read 
one  morning  in  the  paper  an  advertisement  for  a 
factory  manager.  He  applied  for  the  place  in 
person. 

"  You  are  too  young,"  said  the  advertiser. 

"  They  used  to  object  to  me  on  that  score  four 
or  five  years  ago,"  was  his  reply,  "  but  I  did  not 
expect  to  have  it  brought  up  now." 

"  Why,  what  age  are  you  ?  " 

"  I  shall  be  twenty  in  May  next." 

"  How  often  do  you  get  drunk  in  the  week  ?  " 


ROBERT  OWEN.  183 

"  I  never,"  said  Owen,  blushing,  "  was  drunk  in 
my  life." 

"  What  salary  do  you  ask  ?  " 

"  Three  hundred  (pounds)  a  year." 

"  Three  hundred  a  year !  Why,  I  have  had  I 
don't  know  how  many  after  the  place  here  this 
morning,  and  all  their  askings  together  would  not 
come  up  to  what  you  want." 

"  Whatever  others  may  ask,  I  cannot  take  less. 
I  am  making  three  hundred  a  year  by  my  own 
business." 

He  got  the  place.  A  few  days  after,  this  lad  of 
twenty,  who  had  never  so  much  as  entered  a  large 
factory  in  his  life,  was  installed  manager  of  an  es- 
tablishment which  employed  five  hundred  people. 
He  conducted  himself  with  consummate  prudence 
and  skill.  For  the  first  six  weeks  he  went  about 
the  building  grave,  silent,  and  watchful,  using  his 
eyes  much  and  his  tongue  little,  answering  ques- 
tions very  briefly,  and  giving  no  positive  directions. 
When  evening  came,  and  the  hands  were  dismissed, 
he  studied  the  machinery,  the  product,  and  all  the 
secrets  of  the  business.  In  six  weeks  he  was  a 
competent  master,  and  every  one  felt  that  he  was  a 
competent  master.  Of  large  frame,  noble  coun- 
tenance, and  sympathizing  disposition,  he  won  af- 
fection, as  well  as  confidence  and  respect.  In  six 
months  there  was  not  a  better  -  managed  mill  in 
Manchester. 

Now  began  his  connection  with  America,  a  coun- 


184  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

try  to  which,  by  and  by,  he  was  to  give  three  valu- 
able sons.  While  managing  this  mill  he  bought  the 
first  two  bales  of  American  Sea  Island  cotton  ever 
imported  into  England,  arid  he  advanced  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy  pounds  to  Robert  Fulton,  his 
fellow-boarder,  to  help  him  with  his  inventions.  I 
cannot  relate  all  the  steps  by  which  he  made  his 
way,  while  still  a  very  young  man,  to  the  ownership 
of  a  village  of  cotton  mills  in  Scotland,  and  to  a 
union  with  the  daughter  of  David  Dale,  a  famous 
Scotch  manufacturer  and  philanthropist  of  that 
day.  He  was  but  twenty-nine  years  of  age  when 
he  found  himself  at  the  head  of  a  great  community 
of  cotton  spinners  at  New  Lanark  in  Scotland. 

Here  he  set  on  foot  the  most  liberal  and  far-reach- 
ing plans  for  the  benefit  of  the  working  people  and 
their  children.  He  built  commodious  and  beautiful 
school-rooms,  in  which  the  children  were  taught 
better,  in  some  respects,  than  the  sons  of  the  nobil- 
ity were  taught  at  Eton  or  Harrow.  Besides  the 
usual  branches,  he  had  the  little  sons  and  daughters 
of  the  peojDle  drilled  regularly  in  singing,  dancing, 
military  exercises,  and  polite  demeanor.  He  made 
one  great  mistake,  due  rather  to  the  ignorance  of 
the  age  than  his  own :  he  over-taught  the  children 
—  the  commonest  and  f atalest  of  errors  to  new-born 
zeal.  But  his  efforts  generally  for  the  improvement 
of  the  people  were  wonderfully  successful. 

"  For  twenty-nine  years,"  as  he  once  wrote  to 
Lord  Brougham,  "  we  did  without  the  necessity  for 


ROBERT  OWEN.  185 

magistrates  or  lawyers ;  without  a  single  legal  pun- 
ishment ;  without  any  known  poors'  rates ;  without 
intemperance  or  religious  animosities.  We  re- 
duced the  hours  of  labor,  well  educated  all  the  chil- 
dren from  infancy,  greatly  improved  the  condition 
of  the  adults,  and  cleared  upward  of  three  hundred 
thousand  pounds  profit." 

Having  won  this  great  success,  he  fell  into  an 
error  to  which  strong,  self-educated  men  are  pecu- 
liarly liable,  —  he  judged  other  people  by  himself. 
He  thought  that  men  in  general,  if  they  would  only 
try,  could  do  as  well  for  themselves  and  others  as 
he  had.  He  thought  there  could  be  a  New  Lanark 
without  a  Robert  Owen.  Accustomed  all  his  life 
to  easy  success,  he  was  not  aware  how  exceptional 
a  person  he  was,  and  he  did  not  perceive  that  the 
happiness  of  the  people  who  worked  for  him  was 
due  as  much  to  his  authority  as  a  master  as  to  his 
benevolence  as  a  man.  The  consequence  was  that 
he  devoted  the  rest  of  his  life  to  going  about  the 
world  telling  people  how  much  better  they  would  be 
off  if  they  would  stop  competing  with  one  another, 
and  act  together  for  their  common  good.  Why 
have  one  hundred  kitchens,  one  hundred  ovens,  and 
one  hundred  cooks,  when  the  work  done  in  them 
could  be  better  done  in  one  kitchen,  with  one  oven, 
by  five  cooks?  This  was  one  question  that  he  asked. 

Here  is  the  steam  engine,  he  would  say,  doing  as 
much  work  in  Great  Britain  as  the  labor  power  of 
two  worlds  as  populous  as  ours  could  do  without  it. 


186  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

Yet  the  mass  of  the  people  find  life  more  difficult 
than  it  was  centuries  ago.  How  is  this  ?  Such  ques- 
tions Robert  Owen  pondered  day  and  night,  and 
the  results  he  reached  were  three  in  number :  — 

1.  The  steam  engine  necessitates  radical  changes 
in  the  structure  of  society. 

2.  Cooperation  should  take  the  place  of  competi- 
tion. 

3.  Civilized  people  should  no  longer  live  in  cities 
and  separate  homes,  but  in  communities  of  fifteen 
hundred  or  two  thousand  persons  each,  who  should 
own  houses  and  lands  in  common,  and  labor  for  the 
benefit  of  the  whole. 

In  spreading  abroad  these  opinions  he  spent 
forty  of  the  best  years  of  his  life,  and  the  greater 
part  of  a  princely  income.  At  first,  and  for  a  con- 
siderable time,  such  was  the  magnetism  of  his  pres- 
ence, and  the  contagion  of  his  zeal,  that  his  efforts 
commanded  the  sympathy,  and  even  the  approval, 
of  the  ruling  classes  of  England,  —  the  nobility  and 
clergy.  But  in  the  full  tide  of  his  career  as  a  re- 
former he  deliberately  placed  himself  in  opposition 
to  religion.  At  a  public  meeting  in  London  he 
declared  in  his  bland,  impressive  way,  without  the 
least  heat  or  ill-nature,  that  all  the  religions  of  the 
world,  whether  ancient  or  modern,  Christian  or 
pagan,  were  erroneous  and  hurtful. 

Need  I  say  that  from  that  moment  the  influen- 
tial classes,  almost  to  a  man,  dropped  him  ?  One  of 
the  few  who  did  not  was  the  Duke  of  Kent,  the 


ROBERT  OWEN.  187 

father  of  Queen  Victoria.  He  remained  a  stead- 
fast friend  to  Owen  as  long  as  lie  lived.  Mr.  Owen 
founded  a  community  on  his  own  system.  Its  fail- 
ure was  speedy  and  complete,  as  all  experiments 
must  be  which  are  undertaken  ages  too  soon.  He 
came  to  America  and  repeated  the  experiment.  That 
also  failed  in  a  remarkably  short  period.  Asso- 
ciated with  him  in  this  undertaking  was  his  son, 
Robert  Dale  Owen,  who  has  since  spent  a  long  and 
honorable  life  among;  us. 

Returning  to  England,  Mr.  Owen  continued  to 
labor  in  the  dissemination  of  his  ideas  until  the 
year  1858,  when  he  died  at  the  age  of  eighty-seven. 

Mr.  Holyoake,  author  of  "  The  History  of  Co- 
operation in  England,"  attributes  to  the  teaching 
of  Robert  Owen  the  general  establishment  in  Great 
Britain  of  cooperative  stores,  which  have  been  suc- 
cessful. As  time  goes  on  it  is  probable  that  other 
parts  of  his  system  may  become  available  ;  and, 
perhaps,  in  the  course  of  time,  it  may  become  pos- 
sible for  men  to  live  an  associated  life  in  communi- 
ties such  as  he  suggested.  But  they  will  never  do 
it  until  they  can  get  Robert  Owens  at  their  head, 
and  learn  to  submit  loyally  and  proudly  to  the  just 
discipline  essential  to  success  where  a  large  number 
of  persons  work  together. 


JOHN  SMEDLEY, 

STOCKING- MANUFACTURER. 


I  wondee  men  in  a  factory  town  should  ever 
have  the  courage  to  strike ;  it  brings  such  woe  and 
desolation  upon  them  all.  The  first  few  days,  the 
cessation  from  labor  may  be  a  relief  and  a  pleasure 
to  a  large  number  —  a  holiday,  although  a  dull  and 
tedious  holiday,  like  a  Sunday  without  any  of  the 
alleviations  of  Sunday  —  Sunday  without  Sunday 
clothes,  Sunday  bells,  Sunday  church,  Sunday  walks 
and  visits.  A  painful  silence  reigns  in  the  town. 
People  discover  that  the  factory  bell  calling  them 
to  work,  though  often  unwelcome,  was  not  a  hun- 
dredth part  as  disagreeable  as  the  silence  that  now 
prevails.  The  huge  mills  stand  gaunt  and  dead; 
there  is  no  noise  of  machinery,  no  puff  of  steam,  no 
faces  at  the  windows. 

By  the  end  of  the  first  week  the  novelty  has 
passed,  and  the  money  of  some  of  the  improvident 
families  is  running  low.  All  are  upon  short  allow- 
ance, the  problem  being  to  prolong  life  at  the  mini- 
mum of  expense.  The  man  goes  without  his  meat, 
the  mother  without  her  tea,  the  children  without 


JOHN  SMEDLEY.  189 

the  trifling,  inexpensive  luxuries  with  which  pa- 
rental fondness  usually  treated  them.  Before  the 
end  of  the  second  week  a  good  many  are  hungry, 
and  the  workers  begin  to  pine  for  employment. 
Their  muscles  are  as  hungry  for  exercise  as  their 
stomachs  are  for  fcod.  The  provision  dealers  are 
more  and  more  cautious  about  giving  credit.  The 
bank  accounts,  representing  months  or  years  of 
self-denying  economy,  begin  to  lessen  rapidly,  and 
careful  fathers  see  that  the  bulwarks  which  they 
have  painfully  thrown  up  to  defend  their  children 
against  the  wolf  are  crumbling  away  a  hundred 
times  faster  than  they  were  constructed.  If  the 
strike  lasts  a  month,  one  half  the  population  suffers 
every  hour,  and  suffers  more  in  mind  than  in 
body.  Anxiety  gnaws  the  soul.  Men  go  about 
pale,  gloomy,  and  despairing ;  women  sit  at  home 
suffering  even  more  acutely  ;  until  at  last  the  sit- 
uation becomes  absolutely  intolerable  ;  and  the 
strikers  are  fortunate  indeed  if  they  secure  a  small 
portion  of  the  advance  which  they  claimed. 

Terrible  as  all  this  is,  I  am  afraid  we  must  admit 
that  to  just  such  miseries,  sometimes  rashly  encoun- 
tered, often  heroically  endured,  the  workingman 
owes  a  great  part  of  the  improvement  in  his  condi- 
tion which  has  taken  place  during  the  last  seventy- 
five  years.  A  strike  is  like  war.  It  should  be  the 
last  resort.  It  should  never  be  undertaken  except 
after  long  deliberation,  and  when  every  possible  ef- 
fort has  been  made  to  secure  justice  by  other  means. 


190  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

In  many  instances  it  is  better  to  submit  to  a  certain 
degree  of  injustice  than  resort  to  a  means  of  redress 
which  brings  most  suffering  upon  the  least  guilty. 

Does  the  reader  know  how  the  industrial  classes 
were  treated  in  former  times?  Mr.  George  Ad- 
croft,  president  of  an  important  cooperative  organi- 
zation in  England,  began  life  as  a  coal  miner.  He 
has  recently  given  to  Mr.  Holyoake,  author  of  the 
"  History  of  Cooperation,"  some  information  about 
the  habits  and  treatment  of  English  miners  only 
forty  years  ago  :  — 

"  They  worked  absolutely  naked,  and  their  daugh- 
ters worked  by  their  side.  He  and  others  were 
commonly  compelled  to  work  sixteen  hours  a  day ; 
and,  from  week's  end  to  week's  end,  they  never 
washed  either  hands  or  face.  One  Saturday  night 
(he  was  then  a  lad  of  fifteen)  he  and  others  had 
worked  till  midnight,  when  there  were  still  wagons 
at  the  pit's  mouth.  They  had  at  last  refused  to 
work  any  later.  The  foreman  told  the  employer, 
who  waited  till  they  were  drawn  up  to  the  mouth, 
aDd  beat  them  with  a  stout  whip  as  they  came  to 
the  surface." 

So  reports  Mr.  Holyoake,  who  could  produce,  if 
necessary,  from  the  records  of  parliamentary  in- 
vestigations, many  a  ream  of  similar  testimony.  In 
truth,  workingmen  were  scarcely  regarded  —  nay, 
they  were  not  regarded  —  as  members  of  the  human 
family.  We  find  proof  of  this  in  the  ancient  laws 
of  every  country  in  Europe.     In  the  reign  of  Ed- 


JOHN  SMEDLEY.  191 

ward  VI.  there  was  a  law  against  idle  workmen 
which  shows  how  they  were  regarded.  Any  labor- 
ing man  or  servant  loitering  or  living  idly  for  the 
space  of  three  days  could  be  branded  on  the  breast 
with  the  latter  V  (vagabond)  and  sentenced  to  be 
the  slave  of  the  person  who  arrested  him  for  two 
years ;  and  that  person  could  "  give  him  bread, 
water,  or  small  drink,  and  refuse  him  meat,  and 
cause  him  to  work  by  beating,  chaining,  or  other- 
wise." If  he  should  run  away  from  this  treatment, 
he  could  be  branded  on  the  face  with  a  hot  iron 
with  the  letter  S,  and  was  to  be  the  slave  of  his 
master  for  life. 

Nor  does  there  appear  to  have  been  any  radical 
improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  working-man 
until  within  the  memory  of  men  now  alive.  When 
Robert  Owen  made  his  celebrated  journey  in  1815 
among  the  factory  towns  of  Great  Britain,  for  the 
purpose  of  collecting  evidence  about  the  employ- 
ment of  children  in  factories,  he  gathered  facts 
which  his  son,  who  traveled  with  him,  speaks  of  as 
being;  too  terrible  for  belief. 

"  As  a  rule,"  says  that  son  (Robert  Dale  Owen), 
"  we  found  children  of  ten  years  old  worked  regu- 
larly fourteen  hours  a  day,  with  but  half  an  hour's 
interval  for  dinner,  which  was  eaten  in  the  factory. 
.  .  .  Some  mills  were  run  fifteen,  and  in  excep- 
tional cases  sixteen  hours  a  day,  with  a  single  set 
of  hands  ;  and  they  did  not  scruple  to  employ  chil- 
dren of  both  sexes  from  the  age  of  eight.  .  .  .  Most 


192  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

of  the  overseers  carried  stout  leather  thongs,  and 
we  frequently  saw  even  the  youngest  children  se- 
verely beaten." 

This  as  recently  as  1815 !  Mr.  Holyoake  him- 
self remarks  that,  in  his  youth,  he  never  heard  one 
word  which  indicated  a  kindly  or  respectful  feeling 
between  employers  and  employed ;  and  he  speaks 
of  the  workshops  and  factories  of  those  days  as 
"  charnel-houses  of  industry."  If  there  has  been 
great  improvement,  it  is  due  to  these  causes :  The 
resistance  of  the  operative  class ;  their  growth  in 
self-respect,  intelligence,  and  sobriety ;  and  the  hu- 
manity and  wisdom  of  some  employers  of  labor. 

The  reader  has  perhaps  seen  an  article  lately 
printed  in  several  newspapers  entitled  :  "  Strikes 
and  How  to  Prevent  Them,"  by  John  Smedley,  a 
stocking  manufacturer  of  Manchester,  who  employs 
about  eleven  hundred  persons.  He  is  at  the  head 
of  an  establishment  founded  about  the  time  of  the 
American  Revolution  by  his  grandfather;  and  dur- 
ing all  this  long  period  there  has  never  been  any 
strike,  nor  even  any  disagreement  between  the  pro- 
prietors and  the  work-people. 

"  My  ancestors'  idea  was,"  says  Mr.  Smedley, 
"  that  those  who  ride  inside  the  coach  should  make 
those  as  comfortable  as  possible  who  are  compelled, 
from  the  mere  accident  of  birth,  to  ride  outside." 

That  is  the  secret  of  it.  Mr.  Smedley  mentions 
some  of  their  modes  of  proceeding,  one  of  which  is 
so  excellent  that  I  feel  confident  it  will  one  day  be 


JOHN  SMEDLEY.  193 

generally  adopted  in  large  factories.  A  cotton  or 
woolen  mill  usually  begins  work  in  this  country  at 
half-past  six,  and  frequently  the  operatives  live 
half  an  hour's  walk  or  ride  from  it.  This  obliges 
many  of  the  operatives,  especially  family  men  and 
women,  to  be  up  soon  after  four  in  the  morning,  in 
order  to  get  breakfast,  and  be  at  the  mill  in  time. 
It  is  the  breakfast  which  makes  the  difficulty  here. 
The  meal  will  usually  be  prepared  in  haste  and 
eaten  in  haste  :  late  risers  will  devour  it  with  one 
eye  on  the  clock ;  and  of  course  it  cannot  be  the 
happy,  pleasant  thing  a  breakfast  ought  to  be.  But 
in  Mr.  Smedley's  mill  the  people  go  to  work  at  six 
without  having  had  their  breakfast.  At  eight  the 
machinery  stops,  and  all  hands,  after  washing  in  a 
comfortable  wash-room,  assemble  in  what  they  call 
the  dinner-house,  built,  furnished,  and  run  by  the 
proprietors.  Here  they  find  good  coffee  and  tea 
for  sale  at  two  cents  a  pint,  oatmeal  porridge  with 
syrup  or  milk  at  about  ten  cents  a  week  ;  good 
bread  and  butter  at  cost. 

In  addition  to  these  articles,  the  people  bring 
whatever  food  they  wish  from  home.  The  meal  is 
enjoyed  at  clean,  well-ordered  tables.  The  em- 
ployers keep  in  their  service  a  male  cook  and 
female  assistants,  who  will  cook  anything  the  peo- 
ple choose  to  bring.  After  breakfast,  for  fifteen 
minutes,  the  people  knit,  sew,  converse,  stroll  out 
of  doors,  or  amuse  themselves  in  any  way  they 
choose.     At  half-past  eight,  the  manager  takes  his 

13 


194         •        CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

stand  at  a  desk  in  the  great  dinner-room,  gives  out 
a  hymn,  which  the  factory  choir  sings.  Then  he 
reads  a  passage  from  a  suitable  book,  —  sometimes 
from  the  Bible,  sometimes  from  some  other  book. 
Then  there  is  another  hymn  by  the  choir ;  after 
which  all  hands  go  to  work,  the  machinery  starting 
up  again  at  nine. 

There  is  similar  accommodation  for  dinner,  and 
at  six  work  is  over  for  the  day.  On  Saturdays  the 
mill  is  closed  at  half-past  twelve,  and  the  people 
have  the  whole  afternoon  for  recreation.  All  the 
other  rules  and  arrangements  are  in  harmony  with 
this  exquisite  breakfast  scheme. 

"  We  pay  full  wages,"  adds  Mr.  Smedley,  "  the 
hands  are  smart  and  effective.  No  man  ever  loses 
a  day  from  drunkenness,  and  rarely  can  a  hand  be 
tempted  to  leave  us.  AVe  keep  a  supply  of  dry 
stockings  for  those  women  to  put  on  who  come 
from  a  distance  and  get  their  feet  wet ;  and  every 
overlooker  has  a  stock  of  waterproof  petticoats  to 
lend  the  women  going  a  distance  on  a  wet  night." 

I  would  like  to  cross  the  sea  once  more  for 
the  purpose  of  seeing  John  Smedley,  and  placing 
wreaths  upon  the  tombs  of  his  grandfather  and 
father.  He  need  not  have  told  us  that  whenever 
he  goes  through  the  shops  all  the  people  recognize 
him,  and  that  it  is  a  pleasure  to  him  to  be  so  rec- 
ognized. 

"  I  wish,"  he  says,  "  I  could  make  their  lot  easier, 
for,  with  all  we  can  do,  factory  life  is  a  hard  one." 


RICHARD  COBDEN, 

CALICO  PRINTER. 


An  American  citizen  presented  to  the  English 
town  of  Bradford  a  marble  statue  of  Richard  Cob- 
den.  It  was  formally  uncovered  by  Mr.  John 
Bright,  in  the  presence  of  the  mayor  and  town 
council,  and  a  large  assembly  of  spectators.  The 
figure  is  seven  feet  in  height,  and.  it  rests  upon  a 
pedestal  of  Scotch  granite  polished,  which  bears  the 
name  of  COBDEN  encircled  by  an  inscription, 
which  summarizes  the  aims  of  his  public  life  :  — 

"  FREE  TRADE,  PEACE,  AND  GOOD  WILL  AMONG 
NATIONS." 

The  giver  of  this  costly  and  beautiful  work  was 
Mr.  Gr.  H.  Booth,  an  American  partner  in  a  noted 
Bradford  firm.  Unhappily  Mr.  Booth  did  not  live 
to  behold  his  own  gift  and  share  in  the  happiness 
of  this  interesting  occasion. 

We  ought  not  to  be  surprised  that  an  American 
should  have  paid  this  homage  to  the  memory  of 
an  English  statesman.  There  are  plenty  of  good 
Americans  in  this  world  who  were  not  born  in 
America,  and  Richard  Cobden  was  one  of  them. 


196  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

Wherever  there  is  a  human  being  who  can  intelli- 
gently adopt,  not  as  a  holiday  sentiment  merely, 
but  as  a  sacred  principle  to  be  striven  for,  the  in- 
scription borne  upon  the  Cobden  statue  :  "  Free 
trade,  peace,  and  good  will  among  nations,"  there 
is  an  American.  And  this  I  say  although  we  have 
not  yet  adopted,  as  we  shall  soon  adopt,  the  prin- 
ciple of  Free  Trade. 

Cobden  was  one  of  the  best  exemplifications 
which  our  times  afford  of  that  high  quality  of  a 
free  citizen  which  we  name  public  spirit.  The 
force  of  this  motive  drew  him  away  from  a  busi- 
ness which  yielded  a  profit  of  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars  a  year,  to  spend  time,  talent,  fortune,  and 
life  itself,  for  the  promotion  of  measures  which 
he  deemed  essential  to  the  welfare  of  his  country- 
men. 

He  did  this  because  he  could  not  help  doing  it. 
It  was  his  nature  so  to  do.  Circumstances  made 
him  a  calico  printer,  but  by  the  constitution  of 
his  mind  he  was  a  servant  of  the  State. 

His  father  was  an  English  yeoman ;  that  is,  a 
farmer  who  owned  the  farm  he  tilled.  During  the 
last  century  such  farmers  have  become  in  England 
fewer  and  fewer,  until  now  there  are  scarcely  any 
left ;  for  there  is  such  a  keen  ambition  among  rich 
people  in  England  to  own  land  that  a  small  pro- 
prietor cannot  hold  out  against  them.  A  noble- 
man has  been  known  to  give  four  or  five  times  its 
value  for  a  farm  bordering  upon  his  estate,  because 


RICHARD   COBDEN.  197 

in  an  old  country  nothing  gives  a  man  so  much 
social  importance  as  the  ownership  of  the  soil. 
Cobclen's  father,  it  appears,  lost  his  property,  and 
died  leaving  nine  children  with  scarcely  any  pro- 
vision for  their  maintenance ;  so  that  Richard's 
first  employment  was  to  watch  the  sheep  for  a 
neighboring  farmer,  and  this  humble  employment 
he  followed  on  the  land  and  near  the  residence  of 
the  Duke  of  Richmond,  one  of  the  chiefs  of  that  pro- 
tectionist party  which  Cobden  destroyed.  AVith 
regard  to  his  education,  he  was  almost  entirely  self- 
taught,  or,  as  Mr.  Bright  observed,  in  his  most  cau- 
tious manner :  — 

"  He  had  no  opportunity  of  attending  ancient 
universities,  and  availing  himself  of  the  advan- 
tages, and,  I  am  afraid  I  must  say,  in  some  degree, 
of  suffering  from  some  of  the  disadvantages,  from 
which  some  of  those  universities  are  not  free." 

This  sly  satire  of  the  eloquent  Quaker  was  re- 
ceived by  the  men  of  Bradford  with  cheers ;  and, 
indeed,  it  is  true  that  college  education  sometimes 
weakens  more  than  it  refines,  and  many  of  the 
masters  of  our  generation  have  been  so  lucky  as  to 
escape  the  debilitating  process. 

From  tending  sheep  on  his  father's  farm,  he  was 
sent  away  at  ten  years  of  age  to  a  cheap  Yorkshire 
boarding-school,  similar  in  character  to  the  Dothe- 
boys  Hall  described  by  Dickens  many  years  after 
in  "  Nicholas  Niekleby."  Five  miserable  years  he 
spent  at  that  school,  ill-fed,  harshly  treated,  badly 


198  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

taught,  without  once  going  home,  and  permitted  to 
write  to  his  parents  only  once  in  three  months. 
In  after  life  he  could  not  bear  to  speak  of  his  life 
at  school ;  nor  was  he  ever  quite  the  genial  and 
happy  man  he  might  have  been  if  those  five  years 
had  been  spent  otherwise. 

But  here  again  we  see  that  hardship  does  not  so 
radically  injure  a  child  as  unwise  indulgence.  At 
fifteen  he  entered  as  a  clerk  into  the  warehouse  of 
an  uncle  in  London,  an  uncomfortable  place,  from 
which,  however,  he  derived  substantial  advantages. 
The  great  city  itself  was  half  an  education  to  him. 
He  learned  French  in  the  morning  before  going  to 
business.  He  bought  cheap  and  good  little  books 
which  are  thrust  upon  the  sight  of  every  passer- 
by in  cities,  and,  particularly,  he  obtained  a  clear 
insight  into  the  business  of  his  uncle,  who  was  a 
wholesale  dealer  in  muslins  and  calicoes. 

From  clerk  he  was  advanced  to  the  post  of  com- 
mercial traveler,  an  employment  which  most  keenly 
gratified  his  desire  to  see  the  world.  This  was  in 
1826,  before  the  days  of  the  railroad,  when  com- 
mercial travelers  usually  drove  their  own  gigs. 
The  ardent  Cobden  accomplished  his  average  of 
forty  miles  a  day,  which  was  then  considered  very 
rapid  work.  He  traversed  many  parts  of  Great 
Britain,  and  not  only  increased  his  knowledge  of 
the  business,  but  found  time  to  observe  the  natural 
beauties  of  his  country,  and  to  inspect  its  ancient 
monuments.     He  spent  two  or  three  years  in  this 


RICHARD   COBDEN.  199 

mode  of  life,  being  already  the  chief  support  of  his 
numerous  and  unusually  helpless  family. 

At  the  early  age  of  twenty-four  he  thought  the 
time  had  come  for  him  to  sell  his  calicoes  and  mus- 
lins on  his  own  account.  Two  friends  in  the  same 
business  and  himself  put  together  their  small  capi- 
tals, amounting  to  five  hundred  pounds,  borrowed 
another  five  hundred,  rode  to  Manchester  on  the 
top  of  the  coach  named  the  Peveril  of  the  Peak, 
boldly  asked  credit  from  a  wrealthy  firm  of  calico 
manufacturers,  obtained  it,  and  launched  into  busi- 
ness. It  proved  to  be  a  good  thing  for  them  all. 
In  two  years  the  young  men  were  selling  fifty  or 
sixty  thousand  pounds'  worth  of  the  old  men's 
calicoes  every  six  months.  In  after  years  Cobden 
often  asked  them  how  they  could  have  the  courage 
to  trust  to  such  an  extent  three  young  fellows  not 
worth  twTo  hundred  pounds  apiece.  Their  answer 
was :  — 

"  We  always  prefer  to  trust  young  men  with 
connections  and  with  a  knowledge  of  their  trade, 
if  we  know  them  to  possess  character  and  ability, 
to  those  who  start  with  capital  without  these  ad- 
vantages, and  we  have  acted  on  this  principle 
successfully  in  all  parts  of  the  world." 

The  young  firm  gained  money  with  astonishing 
rapidity,  one  presiding  over  the  warehouse  in  Lon- 
don, one  remaining  in  Manchester,  and  the  other 
free  to  go  wherever  the  interests  of  the  firm  re- 
quired.      Cobden  visited  France  and  the  United 


200  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

States.  He  was  here  in  1835,  when  he  thought  the 
American  people  were  the  vainest  in  the  world  of 
their  country.  He  said  it  was  almost  impossible 
to  praise  America  enough  to  satisfy  the  people.  He 
evidently  did  not  think  much  of  us  then.  Ameri- 
can men,  he  thought,  were  a  most  degenerate  race. 
And  as  for  the  women  :  — 

"  My  eyes,"  said  he,  "  have  not  found  one  rest- 
ing place  that  deserves  to  be  called  a  wholesome, 
blooming,  pretty  woman,  since  I  have  been  here. 
One  fourth  part  of  the  women  look  as  if  they  had 
just  recovered  from  a  fit  of  the  jaundice,  another 
quarter  would  in  England  be  termed  in  a  stage  of 
decided  consumption,  and  the  remainder  are  fitly 
likened  to  our  fashionable  women  when  hazard 
and  jaded  with  the  dissipation  of  a  London  season." 

This  was  forty-nine  years  ago.  Let  us  hope  that 
we  have  improved  since  then.  I  think  I  could  now 
find  some  American  ladies  to  whom  no  part  of  this 
description  would  apply. 

After  a  prosperous  business  career  of  a  few  years 
he  left  its  details  more  and  more  to  his  partners, 
and  devoted  himself  to  public  affairs. 

Richard  Cobden,  I  repeat,  was  a  public  man  by 
nature.  He  belonged  to  what  I  call  the  natural 
nobility  of  a  country  ;  by  which  I  mean  the  indi- 
viduals, whether  poor  or  rich,  high  or  low,  learned 
or  unlearned,  who  have  a  true  public  spirit,  and  take 
care  of  the  public  weal.  As  soon  as  he  was  free 
from  the  trammels  of  poverty  he  fell  into  the  habit 


RICHARD   COBDEN.  201 

of  taking  extensive  journeys  into  foreign  countries, 
a  thing  most  instructive  and  enlarging  to  a  genuine 
nobleman.  His  first  public  act  was  the  publication 
of  a  pamphlet  called,  "  England,  Ireland  and 
America,"  in  which  he  maintained  that  American 
institutions  and  the  general  policy  of  the  American 
government  were  sound,  and  could  safely  be  fol- 
lowed ;  particularly  in  two  respects,  in  maintaining 
only  a  very  small  army  and  navy,  and  having  no 
entangling  alliances  with  other  countries. 

"  Civilization,"  said  the  young  pamphleteer,  "  is 
2^eace  ;  war  is  barbarism.  If  the  great  states  should 
devote  to  the  development  of  business  and  the 
amelioration  of  the  common  lot  only  a  small  part  of 
the  treasure  expended  upon  armaments,  humanity 
would  not  have  long  to  wait  for  glorious  results." 

He  combated  with  great  force  the  ancient  notion 
that  England  must  interfere  in  the  politics  of  the 
continent ;  and  if  England  was  not  embroiled  in 
the  horrible  war  between  Russia  and  Turkey,  she 
owes  it  in  part  to  Richard  Cobden.  He  wrote  also 
a  pamphlet  containing  the  results  of  his  observa- 
tions upon  Russia,  in  which  he  denied  that  Russia 
was  as  rich  as  was  generally  supposed.  He  was 
the  first  to  discover  what  all  the  world  now  knows, 
that  Russia  is  a  vast  but  poor  country,  not  to  be 
feared  by  neighboring  nations,  powerful  to  defend 
herself,  but  weak  to  attack.  In  a  word,  he  adopted 
a  line  of  argument  with  regard  to  Russia  very  sim- 
ilar  to   that   recently  upheld   by  Mr.    Gladstone. 


202  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

Like  a  true  American,  he  was  a  devoted  friend 
to  universal  education,  and  it  was  in  connection 
with  this  subject  that  he  first  appeared  as  a  public 
speaker.     Mr.   Bright  said  in  his  oration  :  — 

"  The  first  time  I  became  acquainted  with  Mr. 
Cobden  was  in  connection  with  the  great  question 
of  education.  I  went  over  to  Manchester  to  call 
upon  him  and  invite  him  to  Rochdale  to  speak  at  a 
meeting  about  to  be  held  in  the  school-room  of  the 
Baptist  chapel  in  West  Street.  I  found  him  in  his 
counting-house.  I  told  him  what  I  wanted.  His 
countenance  lighted  up  with  pleasure  to  find  that 
others  were  working  in  the  same  cause.  He  with- 
out hesitation  agreed  to  come.  He  came  and  he 
spoke." 

Persons  who  heard  him  in  those  days  say  that 
his  speaking  then  was  very  much  what  it  was  after- 
ward in  Parliament  —  a  kind  of  conversational  elo- 
quence, simple,  clear,  and  strong,  without  rhetorical 
flights,  but  strangely  persuasive.  One  gentleman 
who  was  in  Parliament  with  him  mentioned  that  he 
disliked  to  see  him  get  up  to  speak,  because  he  was 
sure  that  Cobden  would  convince  him  that  his  own 
opinion  was  erroneous  ;  "  and,"  said  he,  "  a  man 
does  not  like  that  to  be  done." 

Soon  after  coming  upon  the  stage  of  active  life, 
he  had  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  the  public 
policy  of  his  country  was  fatally  erroneous  in  two 
particulars,  namely,  the  protective  system  of  duties, 
and  the  habit  of  interfering  in  the  affairs  of  other 


RICHARD   COBDEN.  203 

nations.  At  that  time  even  the  food  of  the  people, 
their  very  bread  and  meat,  was  stopped  at  the  cus- 
tom houses  until  a  high  duty  was  paid  upon  them, 
for  the  "  protection  "  of  the  farmers  and  landlords. 
In  other  words,  the  whole  population  of  Great  Brit- 
ain was  taxed  at  every  meal,  for  the  supposed  ben- 
efit of  two  classes,  those  who  owned  and  those  who 
tilled  the  soil. 

Richard  Cobden  believed  that  the  policy  of  pro- 
tection was  not  beneficial  even  to  the  protected 
classes,  while  it  was  most  cruel  to  people  whose 
wages  were  barely  sufficient  to  keep  them  alive. 
For  several  years,  aided  by  Mr.  Bright  and  many 
other  enlightened  men,  he  labored  by  tongue  and 
pen,  with  amazing  tact,  vigor,  persistence,  and  good 
temper,  to  convince  his  countrymen  of  this. 

The  great  achievement  of  his  life,  as  all  the  world 
knows,  was  the  repeal  of  those  oppressive  Corn 
Laws  by  which  the  duty  on  grain  rose  as  the  price 
declined,  so  that  the  poor  man's  loaf  was  kept  dear, 
however  abundant  and  cheao  wheat  mio-ht  be  in 
Europe  and  America.  It  was  in  a  time  of  deep 
depression  of  trade  that  he  began  the  agitation. 
He  called  upon  Mr.  Bright  to  enlist  his  coopera- 
tion, and  he  found  him  overwhelmed  with  grief  at 
the  loss  of  his  wife,  lying  dead  in  the  house  at  the 
time.  Mr.  Cobden  consoled  his  friend  as  best  he 
could ;  and  yet  even  at  such  a  time  he  could  not 
forget  his  mission.     He  said  to  Mr.  Bright :  — 

"  There  are  thousands  and  thousands  of  homes 


204  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

in  England  at  this  moment,  where  wives,  mothers, 
and  children  are  dying  of  hunger !  Now  when  the 
first  paroxysm  of  your  grief  is  past,  I  would  advise 
you  to  come  with  me,  and  we  will  never  rest  until 
the  Corn  Laws  are  repealed." 

Mr.  Bright  joined  him.  The  Anti  -  Corn  -  Law- 
League  was  formed ;  such  an  agitation  was  made  as 
has  seldom  been  paralleled ;  but,  so  difficult  is  it  to 
effect  a  change  of  this  kind  against  interested  votes, 
that,  after  all,  the  Irish  famine  was  necessary  to 
effect  the  repeal.     As  a  writer  remarks  :  — 

"  It  was  hunger  that  at  last  ate  through  those 
stone  walls  of  protection  !  " 

Sir  Robert  Peel,  the  prime  minister,  a  protec- 
tionist, as  we  may  say,  from  his  birth,  yielded  to 
circumstances  as  much  as  to  argument,  and  accom- 
plished the  repeal  in  1846.  When  the  great  work 
was  done,  and  done,  too,  with  benefit  to  every  class, 
he  publicly  assigned  the  credit  of  the  measure  to 
the  persuasive  eloquence  and  the  indomitable  res- 
olution of  Richard  Cobden. 

Mr.  Cobden's  public  labors  withdrew  his  atten- 
tion from  his  private  business,  and  he  became  em- 
barrassed. His  friends  made  a  purse  for  him  of 
eighty  thousand  pounds  sterling,  with  which  to  set 
him  up  as  a  public  man.  He  accepted  the  gift, 
bought  back  the  farm  upon  which  he  was  born, 
and  devoted  himself  without  reserve  to  the  public 
service.  During  our  war  he  was  the  friend  and 
champion  of  the  United  States,  and  he  owed  his 


RICHARD   COBDEN.  205 

premature  death  to  his  zeal  and  friendly  regard 
for  this  country.  There  was  a  ridiculous  scheme 
coming  up  in  Parliament  for  a  line  of  fortresses  to 
defend  Canada  against  the  United  States.  On  one 
of  the  coldest  days  of  March  he  went  to  London 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  speaking  against  this  pro- 
ject. He  took  a  violent  cold,  under  which  he  sank. 
He  died  on  that  Sunday,  the  second  of  April,  1865, 
when  Abraham  Lincoln,  with  a  portion  of  General 
Grant's  army,  entered  the  city  of  Richmond.  It 
was  a  strange  coincidence.  Through  four  years  he 
had  steadily  foretold  such  an  ending  to  the  strug- 
gle ;  but  though  he  lived  to  see  the  great  day  he 
breathed  his  last  a  few  hours  before  the  news 
reached  the  British  shore. 

There  is  not  in  Great  Britain,  as  Mr.  Bright 
observed,  a  poor  man's  home  that  has  not  in  it  a 
bisfo-er  and  a  better  loaf  through  Richard  Cobden's 
labors.  His  great  measure  relieved  the  poor,  and 
relieved  the  rich.  It  was  a  good  without  alloy,  as 
free  trade  will,  doubtless,  be  to  all  nations  when 
their  irrepressible  Cobdens  and  their  hungry  work- 
men force  them  to  adopt  it. 

The  time  is  not  distant  when  we,  too,  shall  be 
obliged,  as  a  people,  to  meet  this  question  of  Free 
Trade  and  Protection.  In  view  of  that  inevitable 
discussion  I  advise  young  voters  to  study  Cob- 
den  and  Bright,  as  well  as  men  of  the  opposite 
school,  and  make  up  their  minds  on  the  great 
question  of  the  future. 


HENRY  BESSEMER. 


Nekvous  persons  who  ride  in  sleeping-cars  are 
much  indebted  to  Henry  Bessemer,  to  whose  invent- 
ive genius  they  owe  the  beautiful  steel  rails  over 
which  the  cars  glide  so  steadily.  It  was  he  who 
so  simplified  and  cheapened  the  process  of  making 
steel  that  it  can  be  used  for  rails. 

Nine  people  in  ten,  I  suppose,  do  not  know  the 
chemical  difference  between  iron  and  steel.  Iron 
is  iron  ;  but  steel  is  iron  mixed  with  carbon.  But, 
then,  what  is  carbon?  There  is  no  substance  in 
nature  of  which  you  can  pick  up  a  piece  and  say, 
This  is  carbon.  And  hence  it  is  difficult  to  explain 
its  nature  and  properties.  Carbon  is  the  principal 
ingredient  in  coal,  charcoal,  and  diamond.  Carbon 
is  not  diamond,  but  a  diamond  is  carbon  crystal- 
lized. Carbon  is  not  charcoal,  but  in  some  kinds 
of  charcoal  it  is  almost  the  whole  mass.  As  crys- 
tallized carbon  or  diamond  is  the  hardest  of  all 
known  substances,  so  also  the  blending  of  carbon 
with  iron  hardens  it  into  steel. 

The  old  way  of  converting  iron  into  steel  was 
slow,  laborious,  and  expensive.     In  India  for  ages 


HENRY  BESSEMER.  207 

the  process  has  been  as  follows  :  pieces  of  forged 
iron  are  put  into  a  crucible  along  with  a  certain 
quantity  of  wood.  A  fire  being  lighted  underneath, 
three  or  four  men  are  incessantly  employed  in  blow- 
ing it  with  bellows.  Through  the  action  of  the 
heat  the  wood  becomes  charcoal,  the  iron  is  melted 
and  absorbs  carbon  from  the  charcoal.  In  this  way 
small  pieces  of  steel  were  made,  but  made  at  a  cost 
which  confined  the  use  of  the  article  to  small  ob- 
jects, such  as  watch-springs  and  cutlery.  The  plan 
pursued  in  Europe  and  America,  until  about  twenty- 
five  years  ago,  was  similar  to  this  in  principle. 
Our  machinery  was  better,  and  pure  charcoal  was 
placed  in  the  crucible  instead  of  wood ;  but  the 
process  was  long  and  costly,  and  only  small  pieces 
of  steel  were  produced  at  a  time. 

Henry  Bessemer  enters  upon  the  scene.  In  1831, 
being  then  eighteen  years  of  age,  he  came  up  to  Lon- 
don from  a  country  village  in  Hertfordshire  to  seek 
his  fortune,  not  knowing  one  person  in  the  metrop- 
olis. He  was,  as  he  has  since  said,  "  a  mere  cipher 
in  that  vast  sea  of  human  enterprise."  He  was  a 
natural  inventor,  of  studious  and  observant  habits. 
As  soon  as  he  had  obtained  a  footing  in  London 
he  began  to  invent.  He  first  devised  a  process  for 
copying  bas-reliefs  on  cardboard,  by  which  he  could 
produce  embossed  copies  of  such  works  in  thou- 
sands at  a  small  expense.  The  process  was  so  sim- 
ple that  in  ten  minutes  a  person  without  skill  could 
produce  a  die  from  an  embossed  stamp  at  a  cost  of 
one  penny. 


208  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

When  his  invention  was  complete  he  thought 
with  dismay  and  alarm  that,  as  almost  all  the  ex- 
pensive stamps  affixed  to  documents  in  England 
are  raised  from  the  paper,  any  of  them  could  be 
forged  by  an  office-boy  of  average  intelligence.  The 
English  government  has  long  obtained  an  impor- 
tant part  of  its  revenue  by  the  sale  of  these  stamps, 
many  of  which  are  high  priced,  costing  as  much  as 
twenty-five  dollars.  If  the  stamp  on  a  will,  a  deed, 
or  other  document  is  not  genuine,  the  document 
has  no  validity.  As  soon  as  he  found  what  mis- 
chief had  been  done,  he  set  to  work  to  devise  a 
remedy.  After  several  months'  experiment  and 
reflection  he  invented  a  stamp  which  could  neither 
be  forged  nor  removed  from  the  document  and 
used  a  second  time.  A  large  business,  it  seems, 
had  been  done  in  removing  stamps  from  old  parch- 
ments of  no  further  use,  and  selling  them  to  be  used 
again. 

The  inventor  called  at  the  stamp  office  and  had 
an  interview  with  the  chief,  who  frankly  owned  that 
the  government  was  losing  half  a  million  dollars  a 
year  by  the  use  of  old  stamps ;  and  he  was  then 
considering  methods  of  avoiding  the  loss.  Bessemer 
exhibited  his  invention,  the  chief  feature  of  which 
was  the  perforation  of  the  stamp  in  such  a  way  that 
forgery  and  removal  were  equally  impossible.  The 
commissioner  finally  agreed  to  adopt  it.  The  next 
question  was  as  to  the  compensation  of  the  young 
inventor,  and   he  was   given   his  choice  either   to 


HENRY  BESSEMER.  209 

accept  a  sum  of  money  or  an  office  for  life  in  the 
stamp  office  of  four  thousand  dollars  a  year.  As  he 
was  engaged  to  be  married,  he  chose  the  office,  and 
went  home  rejoicing,  feeling  that  he  was  a  made 
man.  Nor  did  he  long  delay  to  communicate  the 
joyful  news  to  the  young  lady.  To  her  also  he 
explained  his  invention,  dwelling  upon  the  fact 
that  a  five-pound  stamp  a  hundred  years  old  could 
be  taken  off  a  document  and  used  a  second  time. 

"Yes,"  said  she,  "I understand  that ;  but,  surely, 
if  all  stamps  had  a  date  put  upon  them  they  could 
not  at  a  future  time  be  used  again  without  detec- 
tion." 

The  inventor  was  startled.  He  had  never  thought 
of  an  expedient  so  simple  and  so  obvious.  A  lover 
could  not  but  be  pleased  at  such  ingenuity  in  his 
affianced  bride  ;  but  it  spoiled  his  invention !  His 
perforated  stamp  did  not  allow  of  the  insertion  of 
more  than  one  date.  He  succeeded  in  obviating 
this  difficulty,  but  deemed  it  only  fair  to  communi- 
cate the  new  idea  to  the  chief  of  the  stamp  office. 
The  result  was  that  the  government  simply  adopted 
the  plan  of  putting  a  date  upon  all  the  stamps 
afterwards  issued,  and  discarded  Bessemer's  fine 
scheme  of  perforation,  which  would  have  involved 
an  expensive  and  troublesome  change  of  machin- 
ery and  methods.  But  the  worst  of  it  was  that  the 
inventor  lost  his  office,  since  his  sendees  were  not 
needed.     Nor  did  he  ever  receive  compensation  for 

the  service  rendered. 

14 


210  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

Thus  it  was  that  a  young  lady  changed  the  stamp 
system  of  her  country,  and  ruined  her  lover's  chances 
of  getting  a  good  office.  She  rendered  him,  how- 
ever, and  rendered  the  world,  a  much  greater  ser- 
vice in  throwing  him  upon  his  own  resources.  They 
were  married  soon  after,  and  Mrs.  Bessemer  is  still 
living  to  tell  how  she  married  and  made  her  hus- 
band's fortune. 

Twenty  years  passed,  with  the  varied  fortune 
which  young  men  of  energy  and  talent  often  expe- 
rience in  this  troublesome  world.  We  find  him  then 
experimenting  in  the  conversion  of  iron  into  steel. 
The  experiments  were  laborious  as  well  as  costly, 
since  his  idea  was  to  convert  at  one  operation  many 
tons'  weight  of  iron  into  steel,  and  in  a  few  min- 
utes. As  iron  ore  contains  carbon,  he  conceived 
the  possibility  of  making  that  carbon  unite  with 
the  iron  during  the  very  process  of  smelting.  For 
nearly  two  years  he  was  building  furnaces  and  pull- 
ing them  down  again,  spending  money  and  toil 
with  just  enough  success  to  lure  him  on  to  spend 
more  money  and  toil ;  experimenting  sometimes 
with  ten  pounds  of  iron  ore,  and  sometimes  with 
several  hundredweight.  His  efforts  were  at  length 
crowned  with  such  success  that  he  was  able  to  make 
five  tons  of  steel  at  a  blast,  in  about  thirty-five 
minutes,  with  comparatively  simple  machinery,  and 
with  a  very  moderate  expenditure  of  fuel. 

This  time  he  took  the  precaution  to  patent  his 
process,  and  offered  rights  to  all  the  world  at  a 


HENRY  BESSEMER.  211 

royalty  of  a  shilling  per  hundredweight.  His  nu- 
merous failures,  however,  had  discouraged  the  iron 
men,  and  no  one  would  embark  capital  in  the  new 
process.  He  therefore  began  himself  the  manu- 
facture of  steel  on  a  small  scale,  and  with  such 
large  profit,  that  the  process  was  rapidly  introduced 
into  all  the  iron-making  countries,  and  gave  Mrs. 
Bessemer  ample  consolation  for  her  early  misfor- 
tune of  being  too  wise.  Money  and  gold  medals 
have  rained  in  upon  them.  At  the  French  Exhibi- 
tion of  1868  Mr.  Bessemer  was  awarded  a  gold 
medal  weighing  twelve  ounces.  His  process  has 
been  improved  upon  both  by  himself  and  others, 
and  has  conferred  upon  all  civilized  countries  nu- 
merous and  solid  benefits.  We  may  say  of  him 
that  he  has  added  to  the  resources  of  many  trades 
a  new  material. 

The  latest  device  of  Henry  Bessemer,  if  it  had 
succeeded,  would  have  been  a  great  comfort  to  the 
Marquis  of  Lome  and  other  persons  of  weak  diges- 
tion who  cross  the  ocean.  It  was  a  scheme  for  sus- 
pending the  cabin  of  a  ship  so  that  it  should  swing 
free  and  remain  stationary,  no  matter  how  violent 
the  ship's  motion.  The  idea  seems  promising,  but 
we  have  not  yet  heard  of  the  establishment  of  a 
line  of  steamers  constructed  on  the  Bessemer  prin- 
ciple. We  may  yet  have  the  pleasure  of  swinging 
from  New  York  to  Liverpool. 


JOHN  BRIGHT. 
MANUFACTURER, 


Fokty-five  years  ago,  when  John  Bright  was 
first  elected  to  the  British  Parliament,  he  spoke  thus 
to  his  constituents  :  — 

"  I  am  a  working  man  as  much  as  you.  My 
father  was  as  poor  as  any  man  in  this  crowd.  He 
was  of  your  own  body  entirely.  He  boasts  not,  nor 
do  I,  of  birth,  uor  of  great  family  distinctions. 
What  he  has  made,  he  has  made  by  his  own  indus- 
try and  successful  commerce.  What  I  have  comes 
from  him  and  from  my  own  exertions.  I  come 
before  you  as  the  friend  of  my  own  class  and 
order,  as  one  of  the  people." 

When  these  words  were  spoken,  his  father,  Ja- 
cob Bright,  a  Quaker,  and  the  son  of  a  Quaker, 
was  still  alive,  a  thriving  cotton  manufacturer 
of  Rochdale,  ten  miles  from  Manchester.  Jacob 
Bright  had  been  a  "  Good  Apprentice,"  who  mar- 
ried one  of  the  daughters  of  his  master,  and  had 
been  admitted  as  a  partner  in  his  business.  He 
was  a  man  of  much  force  and  ability,  who  became 
in  a  few  years  the  practical  head  of  the  concern, 


iMi 


d^^u,/- 


i  /t, ,  Jii3 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  213 

finally  its  sole  proprietor,  and  left  it  to  his  sons, 
who  have  carried  it  on  with  success  for  about  half 
a  century  longer. 

Four  years  ago,  on  the  celebration  of  John 
Bright' s  seventieth  birthdav,  he  stood  face  to  face 
with  fifteen  hundred  persons  in  the  employment  of 
his  firm,  and  repeated  in  substance  what  he  had 
said  once  before,  that,  during  the  seventy-three 
years  of  the  firm's  existence,  there  had  been,  with 
one  brief  exception,  uninterrupted  harmony  and 
confidence  between  his  family  and  those  who  had 
worked  for  them. 

He  made  another  remark  on  that  birthday  which 
explains  a  great  deal  in  his  career.  It  was  of  par- 
ticular interest  to  me,  because  I  have  long  been 
convinced  that  no  man  can  give  himself  up  to  the 
service  of  the  public,  with  advantage  to  the  public, 
and  safety  to  himself,  unless  he  is  practically  free 
from  the  burdens  and  trammels  of  private  business. 

"  I  have  been  greatly  fortunate,"  said  Mr.  Bright, 
"  in  one  respect  —  that,  although  connected  with  a 
laro-e  and  increasins;  and  somewhat  intricate  busi- 
ness,  yet  I  have  been  permitted  to  be  free  from  the 
employments  and  engagements  and  occupations  of 
business  by  the  constant  and  undeviating  generosity 
and  kindness  of  my  brother,  Thomas  Bright." 

The  tribute  was  well  deserved.  Certainly,  no  in- 
dividual can  successfully  direct  the  industry  of  fif- 
teen hundred  persons,  and  spend  six  months  of  the 
year  in  London,  working  night  and  day  as  a  mem- 


214  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

ber  of  Parliament.  Richard  Cobclen  tried  it,  and 
brought  a  flourishing  business  to  ruin  by  the  at- 
tempt, and  probably  shortened  his  own  life.  Even 
with  the  aid  rendered  him  by  his  brother,  Mr. 
Bright  was  obliged  to  withdraw  from  public  life 
for  three  years  in  order  to  restore  an  exhausted 
brain. 

John  Bright  enjoyed  just  the  kind  of  education 
in  his  youth  which  experience  has  shown  to  be 
the  best  for  the  development  of  a  leader  of  men. 
At  fifteen,  after  attending  pretty  good  Quaker 
schools  in  the  country,  where,  besides  spelling  and 
arithmetic,  he  learned  how  to  swim,  to  fish,  and  to 
love  nature,  he  came  home,  went  into  his  father's 
factory,  and  became  a  man  of  business.  He  had 
acquired  at  school  love  of  literature,  particularly  of 
poetry,  which  he  continued  to  indulge  during  his 
leisure  hours.  You  will  seldom  hear  Mr.  Bright 
speak  twenty  minutes  without  hearing  him  make  an 
apt  and  most  telling  quotation  from  one  of  the  po- 
ets. He  possesses  in  an  eminent  degree  the  talent 
of  quotation,  which  is  one  of  the  happiest  gifts  of 
the  popular  orator.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  this 
manufacturer,  this  man  of  the  people,  this  Manches- 
ter man,  shows  a  familiarity  with  the  more  dainty, 
outlying,  recondite  literature  of  the  world  than  is 
shown  by  any  other  member  of  a  house  composed 
chiefly  of  college-bred  men. 

In  his  early  days  he  belonged  to  a  debating  so- 
ciety, spoke  at  temperance  meetings,  was  an  ardent 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  215 

politician,  and,  in  short,  had  about  the  sort  of  train- 
ing- which  an  American  young  man  of  similar  cast 
of  mind  would  have  enjoyed.  John  Bright,  in  fact, 
is  one  of  that  numerous  class  of  Americans  whom 
the  accident  of  birth  and  the  circumstances  of  their 
lot  have  prevented  from  treading  the  soil  of  Amer- 
ica. In  his  debating  society  he  had  good  practice 
in  public  speaking,  and  on  all  questions  took  what 
we  may  justly  call  the  Quaker  side,  i.  e.,  the  side 
which  he  thought  had  most  in  it  of  humanity  and 
benevolence.  He  sided  against  capital  punish- 
ment, against  the  established  church,  and  defended 
the  principle  of  equal  toleration  of  all  religions. 

Next  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  most  admired 
speaker  in  Great  Britain  is  John  Bright,  and  there 
are  those  who  even  place  him  first  among  the  liv- 
ing orators  of  his  country.  His  published  speeches 
reveal  to  us  only  part  of  the  secret  of  his  power, 
for  an  essential  part  of  the  equipment  of  an  orator 
is  his  bodily  attributes,  his  voice,  depth  of  chest, 
eye,  demeanor,  presence. 

The  youngest  portrait  of  him  which  has  been 
published  represents  him  as  he  was  at  the  age  of 
thirty-one.  If  an  inch  or  two  could  have  been  ad- 
ded to  his  stature  he  would  have  been  as  perfect  a 
piece  of  flesh  and  blood  as  can  ordinarily  be  found. 
His  face  was  strikingly  handsome,  and  bore  the 
impress  both  of  power  and  of  serenity.  It  was  a  well- 
balanced  face  ;  there  being  a  full  development  of 
the    lower   portion   without    any   bull-dog   excess. 


216  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY* 

His  voice  was  sonorous  and  commanding  ;  his  man- 
ner tranquil  and  dignified.  As  he  was  never  a 
student  at  either  university,  he  did  not  acquire 
the  Cambridge  nor  the  Oxford  sing  -  song,  but 
has  always  spoken  the  English  language  as  dis- 
tinctly and  naturally  as  though  he  were  a  native 
American  citizen. 

Although  of  Quaker  family,  and  himself  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Society  of  Friends,  he  has  never  used 
the  Quaker  thee  and  thou,  nor  persisted  in  wear- 
ing his  hat  where  other  men  take  off  theirs.  In 
the  House  of  Commons  he  conforms  to  the  usages 
of  the  place,  and  speaks  of  "  the  noble  lord  oppo- 
site," and  "  my  right  honorable  friend  near  me," 
just  as  though  the  Quakers  never  had  borne  their 
testimony  against  such  vanity.  In  his  dress,  too, 
there  is  only  the  faintest  intimation  of  the  Quaker 
cut.  He  is  a  Quaker  in  his  abhorrence  of  war  and 
in  his  feeling  of  the  substantial  equality  of  men. 
Pie  is  a  Quaker  in  those  few  sublime  principles  in 
which  the  Quakers,  two  centuries  ago,  were  three 
centuries  in  advance  of  the  time. 

For  the  benefit  of  young  orators,  I  will  mention 
also  that  he  has  taken  excellent  care  of  his  bodily 
powers.  As  a  young  man  he  was  a  noted  cricketer 
and  an  enthusiastic  angler.  At  all  periods  of  his 
life  he  has  played  a  capital  game  at  billiards. 
Angling,  however,  has  been  his  favorite  recreation, 
and  he  has  fished  in  almost  all  the  good  streams 
of  the  northern  part  of  his  native  island. 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  217 

Nor  does  lie  find  it  necessary  to  carry  a  brandy 
flask  with  him  on  his  fishing  excursions.  He  men- 
tioned some  time  ago,  at  a  public  meeting,  that  he 
had  been  a  tee-totaler  from  the  time  when  he  set 
up  housekeeping  thirty-four  years  before.  He  said 
he  had  in  his  house  no  decanters,  and,  so  far  as  he 
knew,  no  wineglasses. 

Edward  Everett  used  to  say  that  a  speaker's 
success  before  an  audience  depended  chiefly  upon 
the  thoroughness  of  his  previous  preparation.  Mr. 
Bright  has  often  spoken  extempore  with  great  ef- 
fect, when  circumstances  demanded  it.  But  his 
custom  is  to  prepare  carefully,  and  in  his  earlier 
days  he  used  frequently  to  write  his  speech  and 
learn  it  by  heart.  He  received  his  first  lesson  in 
oratory  from  a  Baptist  clergyman  of  great  note, 
whom  he  accompanied  to  a  meeting  of  the  Bible 
Society,  and  who  afterwards  gave  an  account  of 
their  conversation.  John  Bright  was  then  twenty- 
one  years  of  age. 

"  Soon  a  slender,  modest  young  gentleman  came, 
who  surprised  me  by  his  intelligence  and  thought- 
fulness.  I  took  his  arm  on  the  wray  to  the  meeting, 
and  I  thought  he  seemed  nervous.  I  think  it  was 
his  first  public  speech.  It  was  very  eloquent  and 
powerful,  and  carried  away  the  meeting,  but  it  was 
elaborate,  and  had  been  committed  to  memory. 
On  our  way  back,  as  I  congratulated  him,  he  said 
that  such  efforts  cost  him  too  dear,  and  asked  me 
how  I  spoke  so  easily.    I  said  that  in  his  case,  as  in 


218  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

most,  I  thought  it  would  be  best  not  to  burden  the 
memory  too  much,  but,  having  carefully  prepared 
and  committed  any  portion  when  special  effect  was 
desired,  merely  to  put  down  other  things  in  the 
desired  order,  leaving  the  wording  of  them  to  the 
moment." 

The  young  man  remembered  this  lesson,  and 
acted  upon  it.  He  no  longer  finds  it  best  to  learn 
any  portions  of  his  speeches  by  heart,  but  his  ad- 
dresses show  a  remarkable  thoroughness  of  prep- 
aration, else  they  could  not  be  so  thickly  sown  as 
they  are  with  pregnant  facts,  telling  figures,  and 
apt  illustrations.  His  pudding  is  too  full  of  }i>lums 
to  be  the  work  of  the  moment.  Such  aptness  of 
quotation  as  he  displays  is  sometimes  a  little  too 
happy  to  be  spontaneous ;  as  when,  in  alluding  to 
the  difference  between  men's  professions  out  of  of- 
fice and  their  measures  in  office,  he  quoted  Thomas 
Moore :  — 

"  As  bees  on  flowers  alighting  cease  to  hum, 
So,  settling  upon  places,  Whigs  grow  dumb." 

So  also,  in  referring  to  the  arristocratic  compo- 
sition of  the  English  government,  he  quoted  Mr. 
Lowell's  "  Bigiow  Papers  "  :  — 

"  It  is  something  like  fulfilling  the  prophecies 
When  the  first  families  have  all  the  best  offices." 

Again,  when  lamenting  the  obstacles  put  in  the 
way  of  universal  education  by  the  rivalries  of  sect, 
he  produced  a  great  effect  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons by  saying :  — 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  219 

"  We  are,  after  all,  of  one  religion." 

And  then  he  quoted  in  illustration  an  impressive 
sentence  from  William  Penn,  to  the  effect  that  just 
and  good  souls  were  everywhere  of  one  faith,  and 
"when  death  has  taken  off  the  mask,  they  will 
know  one  another,  though  the  diverse  liveries  they 
wear  here  make  them  strangers." 

No  man  has  less  need  to  quote  the  brilliant  ut- 
terances of  others  than  John  Bright ;  for  he  posses- 
ses himself  the  power  to  speak  in  epigrams,  and  to 
make  sentences  which  remain  long  in  the  memory. 
Once  in  his  life  he  found  himself  in  opposition  to 
the  workingmen  of  his  district,  and  during  the  ex- 
citement of  an  election  he  was  greeted  with  hoots 
and  hisses.  He  made  a  remark  on  the  platform 
which  all  public  men  making  head  against  opposi- 
tion would  do  well  to  remember  :  — 

"  Although  there  are  here  many  of  the  opera- 
tive classes  who  consider  me  to  be  their  enemy,  I 
would  rather  have  their  ill-will  now,  while  defend- 
ing their  interests,  than  have  their  ill-will  hereafter 
because  I  have  betrayed  them." 

One  of  his  homely  similes  uttered  thirty  years 
ago,  to  show  the  waste  and  folly  of  the  Crimean 
War,  has  become  a  familiar  saying  in  Great  Britain. 

"  Some  men,"  said  he,  "  because  they  have  got 
government  contracts,  fancy  that  trade  is  good,  and 
that  war  is  good  for  trade.  Why,  it  is  but  endeav- 
oring to  keep  a  dog  alive  by  feeding  him  with  his 
own  tail." 


220  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

This  homeliness  of  sj)eech,  when  there  is  strong 
conviction  and  massive  sense  behind  it,  has  a  pro- 
digious effect  upon  a  large  meeting.  Once,  during 
his  warfare  upon  the  Corn  Laws,  he  exclaimed :  — 

"  This  is  not  a  party  question,  for  men  of  all  par- 
ties are  united  upon  it.  It  is  a  pantry  question  — 
a  knif e-and-f ork  question  —  a  question  between  the 
working  millions  and  the  aristocracy." 

So  in  addressing  the  work-people  of  his  native 
town,  who  were  on  a  strike  for  higher  wages  at  a 
time  when  it  was  impossible  for  the  employers  to 
accede  to  their  demands  without  ruin,  he  expressed 
an  obvious  truth  very  happily  in  saying :  — 

"  Neither  act  of  parliament  nor  act  of  a  multi- 
tude can  keep  up  wages." 

I  need  scarcely  say  that  no  combination  of  phys- 
ical and  intellectual  powers  can  make  a  truly  great 
orator.  Moral  qualities  are  indispensable.  There 
must  be  courage,  sincerity,  patriotism,  humanity, 
faith  in  the  future  of  our  race. 

His  Quaker  training  was  evidently  the  most  in- 
fluential fact  of  his  whole  existence,  for  it  gave  him 
the  key  to  the  moral  and  political  problems  of  his 
day.  It  made  him,  as  it  were,  the  natural  enemy  of 
privilege  and  monopoly  in  all  their  countless  forms. 
It  suffused  his  whole  being  with  the  sentiment  of 
human  equality,  and  showed  him  that  no  class 
can  be  degraded  without  lowering  all  other  classes. 
He  seems  from  the  first  to  have  known  that  hu- 
man  brotherhood  is  not  a  mere  sentiment,  not  a 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  221 

conviction  of  the  mind,  but  a  fact  of  nature,  from 
which  there  is  no  escape  ;  so  that  no  individual  can 
be  harmed  without  harm  being  done  to  the  whole. 
When  he  was  a  young  man  he  summed  up  all  this 
class  of  truths  in  a  sentence  :  — 

"  The  interests  of  all  classes-  are  so  intimately 
blended  that  none  can  suffer  without  injury  being 
inflicted  upon  the  rest,  and  the  true  interest  of  each 
will  be  found  to  be  advanced  by  those  measures 
which  conduce  to  the  prosperity  of  the  whole." 

Feeling  thus,  he  was  one  of  the  first  to  join  the 
movement  for  Free  Trade.  When  he  came  upon 
the  public  stage  the  Corn  Laws,  as  they  were  called, 
which  sought  to  protect  the  interests  of  farmers 
and  landlords  by  putting  high  duties  upon  imported 
food,  had  consigned  to  the  poor-houses  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  more  than  two  millions  of  pau- 
pers, and  reduced  two  millions  more  to  the  verge 
of  despair.  John  Bright  was  the  great  orator  of 
the  movement  for  the  repeal  of  those  laws.  After 
six  years  of  the  best  sustained  agitation  ever  wit- 
nessed in  a  free  country,  the  farmers  and  land-own- 
ers were  not  yet  convinced.  In  1846,  however,  an 
event  occurred  which  gave  the  reasoning  of  Cob- 
den  and  the  eloquence  of  Bright  their  due  effect 
upon  the  minds  of  the  ruling  class.  This  event 
was  the  Irish  famine  of  1846,  which  lessened  the 
population  of  Ireland  by  two  millions  in  one  year. 
This  awful  event  prevailed,  though  it  would  not 
have  prevailed  unless  the  exertions  of  Cobden  and 


222  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

Bright  had  familiarized  the  minds  of  men  with  the 
true  remedy,  —  which  was  the  free  admission  of 
those  commodities  for  the  want  of  which  people 
were  dying. 

On  his  seventieth  birthday  Mr.  Bright  justified 
what  he  called  the  policy  of  1846.  He  said  to  his 
townsmen : — 

"  I  was  looking  the  other  day  at  one  of  our  wa- 
ges books  of  1840  and  1841.  I  find  that  the  throt- 
tle-piecers  were  then  receiving  eight  shillings  a 
week,  and  they  were  working  twelve  hours  a  day. 
I  find  that  now  the  same  class  of  hands  are  receiv- 
ing thirteen  shillings  a  week  at  ten  hours  a  day  — 
exactly  double.  At  that  time  we  had  a  blacksmith, 
whom  I  used  to  like  to  see  strike  the  sparks  out. 
His  wages  were  twenty-two  shillings  a  week.  Our 
blacksmiths  now  have  wages  of  thirty-four  shil- 
lings, and  they  only  work  ten  hours." 

Poor  men  alone  know  what  these  figures  mean. 
They  know  what  an  amount  of  improvement  in  the 
lot  of  the  industrial  class  is  "due  to  the  shortened 
day,  the  cheaper  loaf,  the  added  shillings. 

In  a  word,  the  effort  of  John  Bright's  life  has 
been  to  apply  Quaker  principles  to  the  government 
of  his  country.  He  has  called  upon  ministers  to 
cease  meddling  with  the  affairs  of  people  on  the 
other  side  of  the  globe,  to  let  Turkey  alone,  to  stop 
building  insensate  ironclads,  and  to  devote  their 
main  strength  to  the  improvement  and  elevation  of 
their  own  people.     He  says  to  them  in  substance  : 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  223 

You  may  have  an  historical  monarchy  and  a  splen- 
did throne  ;  you  may  have  an  ancient  nobility,  liv- 
ing in  spacious  mansions  on  vast  estates ;  you  may 
have  a  church  hiding  with  its  pomp  and  magnifi- 
cence a  religion  of  humility ;  and  yet,  with  all 
this,  if  the  mass  of  the  people  are  ignorant  and 
degraded,  the  whole  fabric  is  rotten,  and  is  doomed 
at  last  to  sink  into  ruin. 


THOMAS  EDWAKD, 

COBBLER  AND  NATURALIST. 


The  strangest  story  told  for  a  long  time  is  that 
of  Thomas  Edward,  shoemaker  and  naturalist,  to 
whom  the  Queen  of  England  recently  gave  a  pension 
of  fifty  pounds  a  year.  He  was  not  a  shoemaker 
who  kept  a  shop  and  gave  out  work  to  others,  but 
actually  worked  at  the  bench  from  childhood  to  old 
age,  supporting  a  very  large  family  on  the  eight  or 
nine  or  ten  shillings  a  week  that  he  earned.  And 
yet  we  find  him  a  member  of  several  societies  of 
naturalists,  the  Linnsean  Society  among  others,  and 
an  honored  pensioner  of  the  Queen. 

His  father  was  a  Scottish  linen  weaver,  and  for 
some  time  a  private  soldier  in  a  militia  regiment 
which  was  called  into  active  service  during  the  wars 
with  Napoleon ;  and  it  was  while  the  regiment 
was  stationed  at  an  English  sea-port  that  this  re- 
markable child  was  born.  A  few  months  after, 
when  the  AVaterloo  victory  had  given  peace  to 
Europe,  the  regiment  was  ordered  home  and  dis- 
banded, and  this  family  settled  at  Aberdeen,  where 
the  father  resumed  his  former  occupation.      Now 


THOMAS  EDWARD.  225 

the  peculiar  character  of  Thomas  Edward  began  to 
exhibit  itself.  He  showed  an  extraordinary  fond- 
ness for  animals,  to  the  sore  distress  and  torment 
of  his  parents  and  their  neighbors. 

It  was  a  taste  purely  natural,  for  not  only  was 
it  not  encouraged,  it  was  strongly  discouraged  by 
every  one  who  could  be  supposed  to  have  influence 
over  the  boy.  He  disappeared  one  day  when  he 
was  scarcely  able  to  walk,  and  when  he  had  been 
gone  for  some  hours  he  was  found  in  a  pig-sty  fast 
asleep,  near  a  particularly  savage  sow  and  her  pigs. 
As  soon  as  he  could  walk  well  enough  his  delight 
was  to  ramble  along  the  shore  and  into  the  country, 
gathering  tadpoles,  beetles,  frogs,  crabs,  mice,  rats, 
and  spiders,  to  the  horror  of  his  mother,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  neighbors,  for  these  awful  creatures 
escaped  into  houses  near  by  and  appeared  to  the 
inmates  at  the  most  unexpected  moments. 

His  parents  scolded  and  whipped  him,  but  his 
love  of  anjmal  life  was  unconquerable,  and  the  only 
effect  of  opposing  it  was  to  make  him  more  cun- 
ning in  its  gratification.  They  tied  the  little  fel- 
low by  his  leg  to  a  table,  but  he  drew  the  table 
up  near  the  fire,  burnt  the  rope  in  halves,  and  was 
off  for  the  fields.  They  hid  his  coat,  but  he  took 
his  elder  brother's  coat  and  ran.  Then  they  hid  all 
his  clothes,  but  he  slipped  on  an  old  petticoat  and 
had  another  glorious  day  out  of  doors,  returning 
with  a  fever  in  his  veins  which  brought  liim  to 
death's  door. 

15 


226  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

All  these  things,  and  many  others  like  them,  hap- 
pened when  he  was  still  a  boy  under  five  years  of 
age.  Recovering  from  his  fever  he  resumed  his 
old  tricks,  and  brought  home  one  day,  wrapped  in 
his  shirt,  a  wasp's  nest,  which  his  father  took  from 
him  and  plunged  into  hot  water.  Between  four 
and  five  he  was  sent  to  school,  his  parents  thinking 
to  keep  him  out  of  mischief  of  this  kind.  But  he 
had  not  the  least  interest  in  school  knowledge,  and 
constantly  played  truant;  and  when  he  did  come 
to  school  he  brought  with  him  all  kinds  of  horrid 
insects,  reptiles,  and  birds.  One  morning  during 
prayers  a  jackdaw  began  to  caw,  and  as  the  bird 
was  traced  to  the  ownership  of  Thomas  Edward,  he 
was  dismissed  from  the  school  in  great  disgrace. 
His  perplexed  parents  sent  him  to  another  school, 
the  teacher  of  which  used  more  vigorous  measures 
to  cure  him  of  his  propensity,  applying  to  his  back 
an  instrument  of  torture  called  "  the  taws."  It 
was  in  vain.  From  this  second  school  he  was  ex- 
pelled, because  some  horse-leeches,  which  he  had 
brought  to  school  in  a  bottle,  escaped,  crept  up  the 
legs  of  the  other  boys,  and  drew  blood  from  them. 

"  I  would  not  take  him  back  for  twenty  pounds  !  " 
said  the  schoolmaster  in  horror. 

A  third  time  his  father  put  him  at  school ;  and 
now  he  experienced  the  ill  consequences  of  having 
a  bad  name.  A  centipede  was  found  upon  another 
boy's  desk,  and  he  was  of  course  suspected  of  hav- 
ing brought  it  into  the  schoolroom.     But  it  so  hap- 


THOMAS  EDWARD.  227 

penecl  that  on  this  one  occasion  he  was  innocent ; 
it  w»as  another  boy's  centipede ;  and  Thomas  de- 
nied the  charge.  The  schoolmaster  whipped  him 
severely  for  the  supposed  falsehood,  and  sent  him 
away  saying :  — 

"  Go  home,  and  tell  your  father  to  get  you  on 
board  a  man-of-war,  as  that  is  the  best  school  for 
irreclaimables  such  as  you." 

He  went  home  and  declared  he  would  go  to  no 
more  schools,  but  would  rather  work.  He  had  now 
reached  the  mature  age  of  six  years,  and  had  been 
turned  out  of  school  three  times,  without  having 
learned  to  write  his  own  name.  Soon  after,  he 
went  to  work  in  a  tobacco  factory  on  the  river 
Don,  a  short  distance  out  of  Aberdeen,  and  there 
for  two  happy  years  he  was  free  to  employ  all 
his  leisure  time  in  investigating  animated  nature 
around  him.  His  love  of  natural  history  grew  with 
his  growth  and  strengthened  with  his  strength,  so 
that  by  the  time  he  had  completed  his  eighth  year 
he  was  familiarly  acquainted  with  the  animals  of 
that  region,  and  had  the  most  lively  admiration 
for  the  more  interesting  specimens.  He  watched 
with  delight  the  kingfisher,  and  loved  to  distin- 
guish the  voices  of  the  different  birds. 

But  his  parents  objecting  to  the  tobacconist's 
trade,  he  was  apprenticed  about  his  ninth  year  to  a 
shoemaker,  —  a  violent,  disreputable  character,  who 
made  ruthless  war  upon  the  lad's  birds  and  reptiles, 
searching  his  pockets  for  them,  and  killing  them 


228  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

whenever  found.  The  lad  bore  this  misery  for 
three  years,  and  then  his  patience  being  exhausted, 
and  having  in  his  pocket  the  sum  of  seven  pence, 
he  ran  away  and  walked  a  hundred  miles  into  the 
country  to  the  house  of  one  of  his  uncles.  His  uncle 
received  him  kindly,  entertained  him  a  day  or  two, 
and  gave  him  eighteen  pence,  upon  which  the  boy 
returned  home,  and  made  a  bargain  with  his  mas- 
ter by  which  he  received  small  wages  and  had  com- 
plete control  of  his  leisure  time.  At  eighteen  we 
may  regard  him  as  fairly  launched  upon  life,  a 
journeyman  shoemaker,  able  to  earn  in  good  times 
nine  shillings  a  week  by  laboring  from  six  in  the 
morning  till  nine  at  night.  At  that  time  all  mechan- 
ics worked  more  hours  than  they  do  at  present,  and 
particularly  shoemakers,  whose  sedentary  occupa- 
tion does  not  expend  vitality  so  rapidly  as  out-of- 
door  trades.  And  what  made  his  case  the  more  dif- 
ficult was,  he  was  a  thorough-going  Scotchman,  and 
consequently  a  strict  observer  of  Sunday.  Con- 
fined though  he  was  to  his  work  fifteen  hours  a  day, 
he  abstained  on  principle  from  pursuing  his  nat- 
ural studies  on  the  only  day  he  could  call  his  own. 
He  was  a  night-bird,  this  Thomas  Edward ;  and 
as  in  Scotland  the  twilight  lasts  till  ten  in  the  even- 
ing  and  the  day  dawns  at  three  in  the  morning, 
there  were  some  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four  which 
he  could  employ,  and  did  employ,  in  his  rambles. 
At  twenty-three  he  fell  in  love  with  a  pretty  girl, 
and  married  her,  his  income  being  still  but  nine 


THOMAS  EDWARD.  229 

and  sixpence  a  week.  His  married  life  was  a 
happy  one,  for  Ms  wife  had  the  good  sense  to  make 
no  opposition  to  his  darling  pursuits,  and  let  him 
fill  their  cottage  and  garden  with  as  many  crea- 
tures as  lie  chose,  not  even  scolding  him  for  his  very 
frequent  absences  during  the  night.  Some  one 
asked  her  recently  about  this,  and  her  reply  was :  — 

"  Weel,  he  took  such  an  interest  in  beasts  that 
I  clidna  compleen.  Shoemakers  were  then  a  very 
drucken  set,  but  his  beasts  keepit  him  frae  them. 
My  mon  's  been  a  sober  mon  all  his  life,  and  he 
never  negleckit  his  wark.     Sae  I  let  him  be."  — 

Children  were  born  to  them,  eleven  in  all,  and 
vet  he  found  time  to  learn  to  write,  to  read  some 
books,  and  to  increase  constantly  his  knowledge  of 
nature.  In  order  to  procure  specimens  for  his  col- 
lection, he  bought  an  old  shot-gun  for  a  sum  equal 
to  about  a  dollar,  —  such  a  battered  old  piece  that 
he  had  to  tie  the  barrel  to  the  stock  with  a  piece  of 
string.  A  cow's  horn  served  for  his  powder;  he 
measured  his  charge  with  a  tobacco  pipe,  and  car- 
ried his  shot  in  a  paper-bag.  About  nine  in  the 
evening,  carrying  his  supper  with  him,  he  would 
start  out  and  search  the  country  round  for  animals 
and  rare  plants  as  long  as  he  could  see ;  then  eat 
his  supper  and  lie  down  and  sleep  till  the  light  re- 
turned,, when  he  would  continue  his  hunting  till  it 
was  time  for  work.  Many  a  fight  he  had  in  the 
darkness  with  badgers  and  pole-cats. 

When  he  had  thus  been  employed  eight  or  nine 


230  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

years,  his  collection  contained  two  thousand  speci- 
mens of  animals  and  two  thousand  plants,  all 
nicely  arranged  in  three  hundred  cases  made 
with  his  own  hands.  Upon  this  collection  he  had 
founded  hopes  of  getting  money  upon  which  to  pur- 
sue his  studies  more  extensively.  So  he  took  it  to 
Aberdeen,  six  cart  loads  in  all,  accompanied  by  the 
whole  family,  —  wife  and  five  children.  It  needs 
scarcely  to  be  said  that  his  collection  did  not  suc- 
ceed, and  he  was  obliged  to  sell  the  fruit  of  nine 
years'  labor  for  twenty  pounds.  Nothing  daunted, 
he  returned  to  his  cobbler's  stall,  and  began  again 
to  collect,  occasionally  encouraged  by  a  neighbor- 
ing naturalist,  and  sometimes  getting  a  little  money 
for  a  rare  specimen.  Often  he  tried  to  procure 
employment  as  a  naturalist,  but  unsuccessfully,  and 
as  late  as  1875  we  find  him  writing  thus  :  — 

"  As  a  last  and  only  remaining  resource,  I  betook 
myself  to  my  old  and  time-honored  friend,  a  friend 
of  fifty  years'  standing,  who  has  never  yet  forsaken 
me  nor  refused  help  to  my  body  when  weary,  nor  rest 
to  my  limbs  when  tired  —  my  well-worn  cobbler's 
stool.  And  although  I  am  now  like  a  beast  teth- 
ered to  his  pasture,  with  a  portion  of  my  faculties 
somewhat  impaired,  I  can  still  appreciate  and  ad- 
mire as  much  as  ever  the  beauties  and  wonders  of 
nature  as  exhibited  in  the  incomparable  works  of 
our  adorable  Creator." 

These  are  cheerful  words  to  come  from  an  old 
man  who  has  enriched  the  science  of  his  country  by 


THOMAS  EDWARD.  231 

additions  to  its  sources  of  knowledge.  In  another 
letter,  written  a  year  or  two  since,  lie  says  :  — 

"  Had  the  object  of  my  life  been  money  instead 
of  nature,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  by 
this  time  I  would  have  been  a  rich  man.  But  it  is 
not  the  things  I  have  done  that  vex  me  so  much  as 
the  things  I  have  not  done.  I  feel  that  I  coidd 
have  accomplished  so  much  more.  I  had  the  will, 
but  I  wanted  the  means." 

It  is  in  this  way  that  such  men  feel  toward  the 
close  of  their  lives.  Thomas  Edward  still  lives,  in 
his  sixty-seventh  year,  at  Banff,  in  Scotland,  rich  in 
his  pension  of  fifty  pounds  a  year,  which  is  more 
than  twice  as  much  as  the  income  he  had  when  he 
supported  by  his  labor  a  wife  and  eleven  children. 
Even  his  specimens  now  command  a  price,  and  he 
is  every  way  a  prosperous  gentleman.  It  seems 
a  pity  that  such  men  cannot  have  their  precious 
little  fifty  pounds  to  begin  with,  instead  of  to  end 
with.  But  who  could  pick  them  out  ?  What  mortal 
eye  can  discern  in  a  man  the  genuine  celestial  fire 
before  he  has  proved  its  existence  by  the  devotion 
of  a  lifetime  to  his  object?  And  even  if  it  could 
be  discerned  in  a  young  man,  the  fifty  pounds  a 
year  might  quench  it. 


ROBERT  DICK, 

BAKER  AND  NATURALIST. 


The  most  northern  county  of  Scotland  is  Caith- 
ness, a  wild  region  of  mountain,  marsh,  and  rock- 
ribbed  headlands,  in  which  the  storms  of  the  Atlan- 
tic have  worn  every  variety  of  fantastic  indentation. 
Much  of  the  land  has  been  reclaimed  in  modern 
days  by  rich  proprietors.  There  are  manufactures 
of  linen,  wool,  rope,  and  straw,  besides  important 
fisheries  ;  so  that  forty  thousand  people  now  find 
habitation  and  subsistence  in  the  county.  There 
are  castles,  too,  ancient  and  modern,  —  some  in 
ruins,  some  of  yesterday,  —  the  summer  home  of 
wealthy  people  from  the  south. 

The  coast  is  among  the  most  picturesque  in  the 
world,  bearing  a  strong  resemblance  to  the  coast  of 
Maine.  The  reader,  perhaps,  has  never  seen  the 
coast  of  Maine.  Then  let  him  do  so  speedily,  and 
he  will  know,  as  he  sails  along  its  bold  headlands, 
and  its  seamed  walls  of  rock  rising  here  and  there 
into  mountains,  how  the  coast  of  Caithness  looked 
to  one  of  the  noblest  men  that  ever  lived  in  it, 
Robert   Dick,  baker   of   Thurso.      Thurso  is  the 


ROBERT  DICK.  233 

most  northern  town  of  this  most  northern  county. 
It  is  situated  on  Thurso  Bay,  which  affords  a  good 
harbor,  and  it  has  thus  grown  to  be  a  place  of  three 
or  four  thousand  inhabitants.  From  this  town  the 
Orkney  Islands  can  be  seen,  and  a  good  walker 
can  reach  in  a  day's  tramp  Dunne t  Head,  the  lofty 
promontory  which  ends  the  Island. 

Here  lived,  labored,  studied,  and  died,  Robert 
Dick,  a  man  whose  name  should  never  be  pro- 
nounced by  intelligent  men  but  with  respect. 

He  did  not  look  like  a  hero.  When  the  boys  of 
the  town  saw  him  coming  out  of  his  baker's  shop,  in 
a  tall  stove-pipe  hat,  an  old-fashioned  dress  coat  and 
jean  trousers,  they  used  to  follow  him  to  the  shore, 
and  watch  him  as  he  walked  along  it  with  his  eyes 
fixed  upon  the  ground.  Suddenly  he  would  stop, 
fall  upon  his  hands  and  knees,  crawl  slowly  onward, 
and  then  with  one  hand  catch  something  on  the 
sand  ;  an  insect,  perhaps.  He  would  stick  it  upon 
a  pin,  put  it  in  his  hat,  and  go  on  his  way ;  and  the 
boys  would  whisper  to  one  another  that  there  was 
a  mad  baker  in  Thurso.  Once  he  picked  up  a  nut 
upon  the  beach,  and  said  to  his  companion :  — 

"  That  has  been  brought  by  the  ocean  current 
and  the  prevailing  winds  all  the  way  from  one  of 
the  West  India  Islands."" 

He  made  the  most  astonishing  journeys  about 
that  fag  end  of  the  universe  in  the  pursuit  of  knowl- 
edge. "We  read  of  his  walking  thirty-two  miles  in 
a  soaking  ram  to  the  top  of  a  mountain,  and  bring- 


234  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

ing  home  only  a  plant  of  white  heather.  On  an- 
other clay  he  walked  thirty-six  miles  to  find  a  pe- 
culiar kind  of  fern.  Again  he  walked  for  twenty- 
four  hours  in  hail,  rain,  and  wind,  reaching  home 
at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning.  But  at  seven  he 
was  up  and  ready  for  work  as  usual.  He  car- 
ried heavy  loads,  too,  when  he  went  searching  for 
minerals  and  fossils.  In  one  of  his  letters  we 
read :  — 

"  Shouldering  an  old  poker,  a  four-pound  ham- 
mer, and  with  two  chisels  in  my  pocket,  I  set  out. 
.  .  .  What  hammering !  what  sweating !  Coat 
off ;  got  my  hands  cut  to  bleeding." 

In  another  letter  he  speaks  of  having  "  three 
pounds  of  iron  chisels  in  his  trousers  pocket,  a  four- 
pound  hammer  in  one  hand  and  a  fourteen-pound 
sledge-hammer  in  the  other,  and  his  old  beaver  hat 
filled  with  paper  and  twine." 

But  who  and  what  was  this  man,  and  why  was  he 
performing  these  laborious  journeys  ?  Robert  Dick, 
born  in  1811,  was  the  son  of  an  excise  officer,  who 
gave  his  children  a  hard  stepmother  when  Robert 
was  ten  years  old.  The  boy's  own  mother,  all  ten- 
derness and  affection,  had  spoiled  him  for  such  a 
life  as  he  now  had  to  lead  under  a  woman  who 
loved  him  not,  and  did  not  understand  his  unusual 
cast  of  character,  his  love  of  nature,  his  wanderings 
by  the  sea,  his  coming  home  with  his  pockets  full 
of  wet  shells  and  his  trousers  damaged  by  the 
mire.     She  snubbed  him ;  she  whipped  him.     He 


ROBERT  DICK.  235 

bore  her  ill  treatment  with  wonderful  patience  ; 
but  it  impaired  the  social  side  of  him  forever. 
Nearly  fifty  years  after  he  said  to  one  of  his  few 
friends  :  — 

"  All  my  naturally  buoyant,  youthful  spirits  were 
broken.  To  this  day  I  feel  the  effects.  I  cannot 
shake  them  off.  It  is  this  that  still  makes  me 
shrink  from  the  world." 

At  thirteen  he  escaped  from  a  home  blighted  by 
this  woman,  and  went  apprentice  to  a  baker ;  and 
when  he  was  out  of  his  time  served  as  a  journey- 
man for  three  years ;  then  set  up  a  small  business 
for  himself  in  Thurso.  It  was  a  very  small  busi- 
ness indeed ;  for  at  that  day  bread  was  a  luxury 
which  many  people  of  Caithness  only  allowed  them- 
selves on  Sundays :  their  usual  fare  being  oatmeal. 
He  was  a  baker  all  the  days  of  his  life,  and  his 
business  never  increased  so  as  to  oblige  him  to 
employ  even  a  baker's  boy.  He  made  his  bread, 
his  biscuit,  and  his  gingerbread  without  any  assist- 
ance, and  when  it  was  done,  it  was  sold  in  his  little 
shop  by  an  old  housekeeper,  who  lived  with  him 
till  he  died. 

The  usual  course  of  his  day  was  this :  He  was 
up  in  the  morning  very  early,  at  any  time  from 
three  to  six,  according  to  his  plans  for  the  after 
part  of  the  day.  He  kneaded  his  bread,  worked 
the  dough  into  loaves,  put  the  whole  into  the  oven, 
waited  till  it  was  baked,  and  drew  it  out.  His 
work  was  then  usually  done  for  the  day.     The  old 


236  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

housekeeper  sold  it  as  it  was  called  for,  and,  in  case 
her  master  did  not  get  home  in  time,  she  could  set 
the  sponge  in  the  evening.  Usually,  he  could  get 
away  from  the  bake-shop  soon  after  the  middle  of 
the  day,  and  he  had  then  all  the  afternoon,  the  even- 
ing, and  the  night  for  studying  nature  in  Caith- 
ness. His  profits  were  small,  but  his  wants  were 
few,  and  during  the  greater  part  of  his  life  he  was 
able  to  spare  a  small  sum  per  annum  for  the  pur- 
chase of  books. 

If  this  man  had  enjoyed  the  opportunities  he 
would  have  had  but  for  his  mother's  death,  he 
might  have  been  one  of  the  greatest  naturalists 
that  ever  lived.  Nature  had  given  him  every  req- 
uisite :  a  frame  of  iron,  Scotch  endurance,  a  poet's 
enthusiasm,  the  instinct  of  not  believing  anything 
in  science  till  he  was  sure  of  it,  till  he  had  put  it 
to  the  test  of  repeated  observation  and  experiment. 
Although  a  great  reader,  he  derived  most  of  his 
knowledge  directly  from  nature's  self.  He  began 
by  merely  picking  up  shells,  as  a  child  picks  them 
up,  because  they  were  pretty ;  until,  while  still  a 
lad,  he  had  a  very  complete  collection  all  nicely 
arranged  in  a  cabinet  and  labeled.  Youth  being 
past,  the  shy  and  lonely  young  man  began  to  study 
botany,  which  he  pursued  until  he  had  seen  and 
felt  everything  that  grew  in  Caithness.  Next  he 
studied  insects,  and  studied  with  such  zeal  that  in 
nine  months  he  had  collected,  of  beetles  alone,  two 
hundred  and  fifty-six  specimens.     There  are  still 


ROBERT  DICK.  237 

in  the  Thurso  museum  two  hundred  and  twenty  va- 
rieties of  bees,  and  two  hundred  and  forty  kinds  of 
butterflies,  collected  by  him. 

Early  in  life  he  was  powerfully  attracted  to  as- 
tronomy, and  read  everything  he  could  find  upon 
the  subject.  But  he  was  one  of  those  students  whom 
books  alone  can  never  satisfy  ;  and  as  a  telescope 
was  very  far  beyond  his  means  he  was  obliged  to 
devote  himself  to  subjects  more  within  his  own 
reach.  He  contrived  out  of  his  small  savings  to 
buy  a  good  microscope,  and  found  it  indispensable. 
Geology  was  the  subject  which  occupied  him  long- 
est and  absorbed  him  most.  He  pursued  it  with 
untiring  and  intelligent  devotion  for  thirty  years. 
He  found  the  books  full  of  mistakes,  because,  as  he 
said,  so  many  geologists  study  nature  from  a  gig 
and  are  afraid  to  get  a  little  mud  on  their  trousers. 

"  When,"  said  he,  "  I  want  to  know  what  a  rock 
is,  I  go  to  it ;  I  hammer  it ;  I  dissect  it.  I  then 
know  what  it  really  is.  .  .  .  The  science  of  geol- 
ogy !  No,  no ;  we  must  just  work  patiently  on, 
collect  facts,  and  in  course  of  time  geology  may 
develop  into  a  science." 

I  suppose  there  never  was  a  man  whose  love 
of  knowledge  was  more  disinterested.  He  used  to 
send  curious  specimens  to  Hugh  Miller,  editor  of 
"  The  Witness "  as  well  as  a  geologist,  and  Mr. 
Miller  would  acknowledge  the  gifts  in  his  paper ; 
but  Robert  Dick  entreated  him  not  to  do  so. 

" 1  am  a  quiet  creature,"  he  wrote,  "  and  do  not 


238  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

like  to  see  myself  in  print  at  all.  So  leave  it  to 
be  understood  who  found  the  old  bones,  and  let 
them  guess  who  can." 

As  long  as  he  was  in  unimpaired  health  he  con- 
tinued this  way  of  life  cheerfully  enough,  refusing 
all  offers  of  assistance.  His  brother-in-law  once 
proposed  to  send  him  a  present  of  whiskey. 

"  No,"  said  he  in  reply,  "  spirits  never  enter  this 
house  save  when  I  cannot  help  it." 

His  brother-in-law  next  oif  ered  to  send  him  some 
money.     He  answered  :  — 

"  God  grant  you  more  sense !  I  want  no  sov- 
ereigns. It 's  of  no  use  sending  anything  down 
here.  Nothing  is  wanted.  Delicacies  would  only 
injure  health.  Hardy  is  the  word  with  working 
people.    Pampering  does  no  good,  but  much  evil." 

And  yet  the  latter  days  of  this  great-souled  man 
were  a  woeful  tragedy.  He  was  the  best  baker  in 
the  place,  gave  full  weight,  paid  for  his  flour  on 
the  day,  and  was  in  all  respects  a  model  of  fair 
dealing.  But  his  trade  declined.  Competition  re- 
duced his  profits  and  limited  his  sales.  When  the 
great  split  occurred  in  Scotland  between  the  old 
and  the  free  church,  he  stuck  to  the  old,  merely 
saying  that  the  church  of  his  forefathers  was  good 
enough  for  him.  But  his  neighbors  and  customers 
were  zealous  for  the  free  church  ;  and  one  day,  when 
the  preacher  aimed  a  sermon  at  him  for  taking  his 
walks  on  Sunday,  he  was  offended,  and  rarely  went 
again.     And  so,  for  various  reasons,  his  business 


ROBERT  DICK.  239 

declined  ;  some  losses  befell  him  ;  and  lie  injured 
his  constitution  by  exposure  and  exhausting  labors 
in  the  study  of  geology. 

There  were  rich  and  powerful  families  near  by 
who  knew  his  worth,  or  would  have  known  it  if 
they  had  themselves  been  worthy.  They  looked 
on  and  saw  the  noblest  heart  in  Scotland  break  in 
this  unequal  strife.  They  should  have  set  him  free 
from  his  bake-shop  as  soon  as  he  had  given  proof 
of  the  stuff  he  was  made  of.  He  was  poet,  artist, 
philosopher,  hero,  and  they  let  him  die  in  his  bake- 
house in  misery.  After  his  death  they  performed 
over  his  body  the  shameful  mockery  of  a  pompous 
funeral,  and  erected  in  his  memory  a  paltry  monu- 
ment, which  will  commemorate  their  shame  as  long 
as  it  lasts.  His  name  has  been  rescued  from  ob- 
livion by  the  industry  and  tact  of  Samuel  Smiles, 
who,  in  writing  his  life,  has  revealed  to  us  a  rarer 
and  higher  kind  of  man  than  Eobert  Burns. 


JOHN  DUNCAN, 

WEAVER  AND  BOTANIST. 


Many  young  men  ask  nowadays  what  is  the 
secret  of  "  success."  It  were  better  to  inquire  also 
how  to  do  without  success,  since  that  is  the  destiny 
of  most  of  us,  even  in  the  most  prosperous  com- 
munities. 

Could  there  be  imagined  a  more  complete  "  fail- 
ure "  than  this  John  Duncan,  a  Scottish  weaver, 
always  very  poor,  at  last  a  pauper,  short-sighted, 
bent,  shy,  unlettered,  illegitimate,  dishonored  in 
his  home,  not  nnfrequently  stoned  by  the  boys  of 
the  roadside,  and  in  every  particular,  according  to 
the  outward  view,  a  wretched  fag-end  of  human 
nature ! 

Yet,  redeemed  and  dignified  by  the  love  of 
knowledge,  he  passed,  upon  the  whole,  a  joyous 
and  even  a  triumphant  life.  He  had  a  pursuit 
which  absorbed  his  nobler  faculties,  and  lifted  him 
far  above  the  mishaps  and  inconveniences  of  his 
lowly  lot.  The  queen  of  his  country  took  an  in- 
terest in  his  pursuits,  and  contributed  to  the  ease 
of  his  old  age.     Learned  societies  honored  him, 


J^^U^^^^^^ 


JOHN  DUNCAN.  241 

and  the  illustrious  Charles  Darwin  called  him  "  ruy 
fellow  botanist." 

The  mother  of  John  Duncan,  a  "  strong,  pretty 
woman,"  as  he  called  her,  lived  in  a  poor  tenement 
at  Stonehaven,  on  the  Scottish  coast,  and  supported 
herself  by  weaving  stockings  at  her  own  home,  and 
in  the  summer  went  into  the  harvest  field.  He  al- 
ways held  his  mother  in  honor  and  tenderness,  as 
indeed  he  ought,  for  she  stood  faithfully  by  the  chil- 
dren she  ought  not  to  have  borne. 

As  a  boy  the  future  botanist  developed  an  aston- 
ishing facidty  of  climbing.  There  was  a  famous 
old  castle  upon  the  pinnacle  of  a  cliff,  inaccessible 
except  to  cats  and  boys.  He  was  the  first  to  gain 
access  to  the  ancient  ruin,  and  after  him  the  whole 
band  of  boys  explored  the  castle,  from  the  deep 
dungeons  to  the  topmost  turret. 

His  first  employment  led  him  directly  to  what 
became  a  favorite  pursuit  of  his  lifetime.  By  way 
of  adding  to  the  slender  gains  of  his  mother,  he 
extracted  the  white  pith  from  certain  rushes  of  the 
region,  which  made  very  good  lamp-wicks  for  the 
kind  of  lamps  then  in  use  in  Scotland.  These 
wicks  of  pith  he  sold  about  the  town  in  small 
penny  bimdies.  In  order  to  get  his  supply  of 
rushes  he  was  obliged  to  roam  the  country  far  and 
wide,  and  along  the  banks  of  streams.  When  he 
had  gathered  as  many  as  he  could  carry  he  would 
bring  them  home  to  be  stripped.  To  the  end  of 
his  days,  when  he  knew  familiarly  every  plant  that 

16 


242  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

grew  in  his  native  land,  lie  had  a  particular  fond- 
ness for  all  the  varieties  of  rush,  and  above  all  for 
the  kind  that  gave  him  his  first  knowledge. 

Then  he  went  to  a  farmer's  to  tend  cattle,  and 
in  this  employment  he  experienced  the  hard  and 
savage  treatment  to  which  hired  boys  were  so  fre- 
quently subjected  at  that  day.  Drenched  with  rain 
after  tending  his  herd  all  day,  the  brutal  farmer 
would  not  permit  him  to  go  near  the  fire  to  dry 
his  clothes.  He  had  to  go  to  his  miserable  bed  in 
an  out-house,  where  he  poured  the  water  from  his 
shoes,  and  wrung  out  his  wet  clothes  as  dry  as  he 
could.  In  that  foggy  climate  his  garments  were 
often  as  wet  in  the  morning  as  he  left  them  in  the 
evening,  and  so  days  would  pass  without  his  having 
a  dry  thread  upon  him. 

But  it  did  not  rain  always.  Frequently  his  herd 
was  pastured  near  the  old  castle,  which,  during  the 
long  summer  days,  he  studied  more  intelligently, 
and  in  time  learned  all  about  its  history  and  con- 
struction. And  still  he  observed  the  flowers  and 
plants  that  grew  about  his  feet.  It  seemed  nat- 
ural to  him  to  observe  them  closely  and  to  learn 
their  names  and  uses. 

In  due  time  he  was  apprenticed  to  a  weaver. 
This  was  before  the  age  of  the  noisy,  steaming  fac- 
tory. Each  weaver  then  worked  at  home,  at  his 
own  loom,  and  could  rent,  if  he  chose,  a  garden 
and  a  field,  and  keep  a  cow,  and  live  a  man's  life 
upon  his  native  soil.     Again  our  poor,  shy  appren- 


JOHN  DUNCAN.  243 

tice  had  one  of  the  hardest  of  masters.  The  boy- 
was  soon  able  to  do  the  work  of  a  man,  and  the 
master  exacted  it  from  him.  On  Saturdays  the 
loom  was  usually  kept  going  till  midnight,  when 
it  stopped  at  the  first  sound  of  the  clock,  for  this 
man,  who  had  less  feeling  for  a  friendless  boy  than 
for  a  dog  or  a  horse,  was  a  strict  Sabbatarian.  In 
the  depth  of  the  Scotch  winter  he  would  keep  the 
lad  at  the  river-side,  washing  and  wringing  out  the 
yarn,  a  process  that  required  the  arms  to  be  bare 
and  the  hands  to  be  constantly  wet.  His  hands 
would  be  all  chilblains  and  frost-bitten. 

But  again  we  may  say  it  was  not  always  winter. 
In  the  most  dismal  lot  there  are  gleams  of  sun- 
shine. The  neighbors  pitied  and  comforted  him. 
His  tyrant's  wife  was  good  to  him  as  far  as  she 
dared.  It  was  she,  indeed,  who  inspired  him  with 
the  determination  to  learn  to  read,  and  another 
friendly  woman  gave  him  regular  instruction.  He 
was  sixteen  years  old  when  he  learned  his  alpha- 
bet. A  school-girl,  the  daughter  of  another  wea- 
ver, would  come  into  his  shop  to  hear  him  read  his 
lesson,  and  tell  him  how  to  pronounce  the  hard 
words.  This  bright,  pretty  girl  of  twelve  would 
take  her  seat  on  the  loom  beside  the  bashful,  lanky 
boy,  who,  with  the  book  close  to  his  eyes  and  his 
finger  on  the  page,  would  grope  his  way  through 
the  paragraph. 

Other  children  helped  him,  and  he  was  soon  able 
to  get  the  meanings  from  the  few  books  at  his  com- 


244  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

mand.  His  solitary  walks  were  still  cheered  by 
liis  observation  of  nature,  although  as  yet  he  did 
not  know  there  was  such  a  thing  as  a  science  of 
botany.  He  could  give  no  account  of  the  interest 
he  took  in  plants,  except  that  he  "  loved  the  pretty 
little  things,"  and  liked  to  know  their  names, 
and  to  classify  in  his  rude  way  those  that  were 
alike. 

The  exactions  of  his  despot  wore  out  at  length 
even  his  astonishing  patience.  He  ran  away  at 
twenty,  and  entered  upon  the  life  which  he  lived 
all  the  rest  of  his  days,  that  of  a  weaver,  wander- 
ing about  Scotland  according  to  his  need  of  work. 
At  this  period  he  was  not  the  possessor  of  a  sin- 
gle book  relating  to  his  favorite  pursuit,  and  he 
had  never  seen  but  one,  an  old-fashioned  work  of 
botany  and  astrology,  of  nature  and  superstition, 
by  the  once  famous  Culpepper.  It  required  extra 
work  for  months,  at  the  low  wages  of  a  hand- loom 
weaver,  to  get  the  money  required  for  the  purchase 
of  this  book,  about  five  dollars.  The  work  misled 
him  in  many  ways,  but  it  contained  the  names  and 
properties  of  many  of  his  favorite  herbs.  Better 
books  corrected  these  errors  by  and  by,  and  he 
gradually  gathered  a  considerable  library,  each  vol- 
ume won  by  pinching  economy  and  hard  labor. 

The  sorrow  of  his  life  was  his  most  woeful,  dis- 
astrous marriage.  His  wife  proved  false  to  him, 
abandoned  his  home  and  their  two  daughters,  and 
became  a  drunken  tramp.     Every  now  and  then 


JOHN  DUNCAN.  245 

she  returned  to  him,  appealing  to  his  compassion 
for  assistance.  I  think  Charles  Dickens  must  have 
had  John  Duncan's  case  in  his  mind  when  he  wrote 
those  powerful  scenes  of  the  poor  man  cursed  with 
a  drunken  wife  in  "  Hard  Times." 

But  the  more  miserable  his  outward  life,  the 
more  diligently  he  resorted  for  comfort  to  his 
darling  plants.  For  many  years  he  groped  in 
the  dark ;  but  at  length  he  was  put  upon  the  right 
path  by  one  of  those  accomplished  gardeners  so 
common  in  Scotland,  where  the  art  of  gardening:  is" 

7  Co 

carried  to  high  perfection.  He  always  sought  the 
friendship  of  gardeners  wherever  he  went.  Never- 
theless he  was  forty  years  old  before  he  became  a 
scientific  botanist. 

During  the  rest  of  his  life  of  forty-four  years, 
besides  pursuing  his  favorite  branch,  he  obtained  a 
very  considerable  knowledge  of  the  kindred  sciences 
and  of  astronomy.  Being  obliged  to  sell  his  watch 
in  a  time  of  scarcity,  he  made  for  himself  a  pocket 
sun-dial,  by  which  he  could  tell  the  time  to  within 
seven  or  eight  minutes. 

During  this  period  steam  was  gaining  every  year 
upon  hand  power ;  his  wages  grew  less  and  less ; 
and,  as  his  whole  heart  was  in  science,  he  had  no 
energy  left  for  seeking  more  lucrative  employment. 
"When  he  was  past  eighty-three  he  would  walk 
twelve  miles  or  more  to  get  a  new  sjDecimen,  and 
hold  on  his  way,  though  drenched  with  a  sudden 
storm. 


246  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

At  length,  old  age  and  lack  of  work  reduced  him 
to  actual  suffering  for  the  necessaries  of  life.  Mr. 
William  Jolly,  a  contributor  to  periodicals,  heard 
his  story,  sought  him  out,  and  found  him  so  poor  as 
to  be  obliged  to  accept  out-door  relief,  of  which  the 
old  man  was  painfully  ashamed.  He  published  a 
brief  history  of  the  man  and  of  his  doings  in  the 
newspapers. 

"  The  British  people,"  says  Voltaire,  "  may  be 
very  stupid,  but  they  know  how  to  give." 

Money  rained  down  upon  the  old  philosopher, 
until  a  sum  equal  to  about  sixteen  hundred  dollars 
had  reached  him,  which  abundantly  sufficed  for  his 
maintenance  during  the  short  residue  of  his  life. 
For  the  first  time  in  fifty  years  he  had  a  new  and 
warm  suit  of  clothes,  and  he  again  sat  down  by  his 
own  cheerful  fire,  an  independent  man,  as  he  had 
been  all  his  life  until  he  could  no  longer  exercise 
his  trade. 

He  died  soon  after,  bequeathing  the  money  he 
had  received  for  the  foundation  of  scholarships  and 
prizes  for  the  encouragement  of  the  study  of  natu- 
ral science  among  the  boys  and  girls  of  his  country. 
His  valuable  library,  also,  he  bequeathed  for  the 
same  object. 


JAMES  LACKINGTON, 

SECOND-HAND   BOOKSELLER. 


It  would  seem  not  to  be  so  very  difficult  a  mat- 
ter to  buy  an  article  for  fifty  cents  and  sell  it  for 
seventy-five.  Business  men  know,  however,  that 
to  live  and  thrive  by  buying  and  selling  requires  a 
special  gift,  which  is  about  as  rare  as  other  spe- 
cial gifts  by  which  men  conquer  the  world.  In  some 
instances,  it  is  easier  to  make  a  thing  than  to  sell  it, 
and  it  is  not  often  that  a  man  who  excels  in  the 
making  succeeds  equally  well  in  the  selling.  Gen- 
eral George  P.  Morris  used  to  say :  — 

"  I  know  a  dozen  men  in  New  York  who  could 
make  a  good  paper,  but  among  them  all  I  do  not 
know  one  who  coidd  sell  it."  . 

The  late  Governor  Morgan  of  New  York  had 
this  talent  in  a  singular  degree  even  as  a  boy.  His 
uncle  sent  him  to  New  York,  to  buy,  among  other 
things,  two  or  three  hundred  bushels  of  corn.  He 
bought  two  cargoes,  and  sold  them  to  advantage  in 
Hartford  on  his  way  from  the  stage  office  to  his 
uncle's  store,  and  he  kept  on  doing  similar  things 
all  his  life.     He  kuew  by  a  sort  of  intuition  when 


248  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

it  was  safe  to  buy  twenty  thousand  bags  of  coffee, 
or  all  the  coffee  there  was  for  sale  in  New  York, 
and  he  was  very  rarely  mistaken ;  he  had  a  genius 
for  buying  and  selling. 

I  have  seen  car-boys  and  news-boys  who  had  this 
gift.  There  are  boys  who  will  go  through  a  train 
and  hardly  ever  fail  to  sell  a  book  or  two.  They 
improve  every  chance.  If  there  is  a  passenger  who 
wants  a  book,  or  can  be  made  to  think  he  wants 
one,  the  boy  will  find  him  out. 

Now  James  Lackington  was  a  boy  of  that  kind. 
In  the  preface  to  the  Memoirs  which  he  wrote  of 
his  career  he  described  himself  as  a  person  "  who, 
a  few  years  since,  began  business  with  five  pounds, 
and  now  sells  one  hundred  thousand  volumes  an- 
nually." But  in  fact  he  did  not  begin  business 
with  five  pounds,  but  with  nothing  at  all. 

He  was  the  son  of  a  drunken  shoemaker  who  lived 
in  an  English  country  town,  and  he  had  no  school- 
ing except  a  few  weeks  at  a  dame's  school,  at  two- 
pence a  week.  He  had  scarcely  learned  his  letters 
at  that  school  when  his  mother  was  obliged  to  take 
him  away  to  help  her  in  tending  his  little  brothers 
and  sisters.  He  spent  most  of  his  childhood  in 
doing  that,  and,  as  he  remarks,  "  in  running  about 
the  streets  getting  into  mischief."  When  he  was 
ten  years  old  he  felt  the  stirring  of  an  inborn 
genius  for  successful  traffic. 

He  noticed,  and  no  doubt  with  the  hungry  eyes 
of  a  growing  boy,  an  old  pie-man,  who  sold  his  pies 


JAMES  LACKINGTON.  249 

about  the  streets  in  a  careless,  inefficient  way,  and 
the  thought  occurred  to  him  that,  if  he  had  pies  to 
sell,  he  coidd  sell  more  of  them  than  the  ancient 
pie-man.  He  went  to  a  baker  and  acquainted  him 
with  his  thoughts  on  pie-selling,  and  the  baker  soon 
sent  him  out  with  a  tray  full  of  pies.  He  showed 
his  genius  at  once.  The  spirited  way  in  which  he 
cried  his  pies,  and  his  activity  in  going  about  with 
them,  made  him  a  favorite  with  the  pie-buyers  of 
the  town  ;  so  that  the  old  pie-man  in  a  few  weeks 
lost  all  his  business,  and  shut  up  his  shop.  The 
boy  served  his  baker  more  than  a  year,  and  sold  so 
many  j)ies  and  cakes  for  him  as  to  save  him  from 
impending  bankruptcy.  In  the  winter  time  he  sold 
almanacs  with  such  success  that  the  other  dealers 
threatened  to  do  him  bodily  mischief. 

But  this  kind  of  business  would  not  do  to  de- 
pend on  for  a  lifetime,  and  therefore  he  was  bound 
apprentice  to  a  shoemaker  at  the  age  of  fourteen 
years,  during  which  a  desire  for  more  knowledge 
arose  within  him.  He  learned  to  read  and  write, 
but  was  still  so  ashamed  of  his  ignorance  that  he 
did  not  dare  to  go  into  a  bookstore  because  he  did 
not  know  the  name  of  a  single  book  to  ask  for. 
One  of  his  friends  bought  for  him  a  little  volume 
containing  a  translation  from  the  Greek  philoso- 
j)her  Epictetus,  a  work  full  of  wise  maxims  about 
life  and  duty.  Then  he  bought  other  ancient  au- 
thors, Plato,  Plutarch,  Epicurus,  and  others.  He 
became   a   sort   of   Methodist  philosopher,  for  he 


250  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

heard  the  Methodist  preachers  diligently  on  Sun- 
days, and  read  his  Greek  philosophy  in  the  even- 
ings. He  tells  us  that  the  account  of  Epicurus 
living  in  his  garden  upon  a  halfpenny  a  day,  and 
considering  a  little  cheese  on  his  bread  as  a  great 
treat,  filled  him  with  admiration,  and  he  began 
forthwith  to  live  on  bread  and  tea  alone,  in  order 
to  get  money  for  his  books.  After  ending  his  ap- 
prenticeship and  working  for  a  short  time  as  a 
journeyman,  he  married  a  buxom  dairymaid,  with 
whom  he  had  been  in  love  for  seven  years.  It  was 
a  bold  enterprise,  for  when  they  went  to  their  lodg- 
ings after  the  wedding  they  searched  their  pockets 
carefully  to  discover  the  state  of  their  finances,  aud 
found  that  they  had  one  halfpenny  to  begin  the 
world  with.  They  had  laid  in  provisions  for  a  day 
or  two,  and  they  had  work  by  which  to  procure 
more,  so  they  began  their  married  life  by  sitting 
down  to  work  at  shoemaking  and  singing  together 
the  following  stanza  : 

"  Our  portion  is  not  large  indeed, 
But  then  how  little  do  we  need  ! 

For  nature's  wants  are  few. 
In  tins  the  art  of  living  lies, 
To  want  no  more  than  may  suffice, 
And  make  that  little  do." 

They  were  as  happy  as  the  day  was  long.  Twenty 
times,  reports  this  jolly  shoemaker,  he  and  his  wife 
sang  an  ode  by  Samuel  Wesley,  beginning  :  — 

"  No  glory  I  covet,  no  riches  I  want, 
Ambition  is  nothing  to  me  ; 


JAMES  LACKINGTON.  251 

The  one  tiling  I  beg  of  kind  Heaven  to  grant 
Is  a  mind  independent  and  free.  " 

They  needed  their  cheerful  philosophy,  for  all 
they  had  to  spend  on  food  and  drink  for  a  week 
was  a  sum  about  equal  to  one  of  our  dollars.  Even 
this  small  revenue  grew  smaller,  owing  to  the  hard 
times,  and  poor  James  Lackington  saw  his  young 
wife  pining  away  under  insufficient  food  and  sed- 
entary employment.  His  courage  again  saved  him. 
After  enduring  extreme  poverty  for  three  years, 
he  got  together  all  the  money  he  could  raise,  gave 
most  of  it  to  his  wife,  and  set  out  for  London, 
where  he  arrived  in  August,  1774,  with  two  and 
sixpence  in  his  pocket. 

It  was  a  fortunate  move  for  our  brave  shoemaker. 
He  obtained  work  and  good  wages  at  once,  soon 
sent  for  his  wife,  and  their  united  earnings  more 
than  supplied  their  wants.  A  timely  legacy  of  ten 
pounds  from  his  grandfather  gave  them  a  little 
furniture,  and  he  became  again  a  frequenter  of 
second-hand  bookstores.  He  could  scarcely  resist 
the  temptation  of  a  book  that  he  wanted.  One 
Christmas  Eve  he  went  out  with  money  to  buy 
their  Christmas  dinner,  but  spent  the  whole  sum 
for  a  copy  of  Young's  "Night  Thoughts."  His 
wife  did  not  relish  this  style  of  Christmas  repast. 

"  I  think,"  said  he  to  his  disappointed  spouse, 
"  that  I  have  acted  wisely ;  for  had  I  bought  a  din- 
ner we  should  have  eaten  it  to-morrow,  and  the 
pleasure  would  have  been  soon  over  ;  but  should  we 


252  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

live  fifty  years  longer  we  shall  have  the  '  Xight 
Thoughts  '  to  feast  upon." 

It  was  his  love  of  books  that  gave  him  abundant 
Christmas  dinners  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  Having 
hired  a  little  shop  in  which  to  sell  the  shoes  made 
by  himself  and  his  wife,  it  occurred  to  him  that  he 
could  employ  the  spare  room  in  selling  old  books, 
his  chief  motive  being  to  have  a  chance  to  read  the 
books  before  he  sold  them.  Beginning  with  a 
stock  of  half  a  hundred  volumes,  chiefly  of  divinity, 
he  invested  all  his  earnings  in  this  new  branch, 
and  in  six  months  he  found  his  stock  of  books  had 
increased  fivefold.  He  abandoned  his  shoemak- 
ing,  moved  into  larger  premises,  and  was  soon  a 
thriving  bookseller.  He  was  scrupulous  not  to  sell 
any  book  which  he  thought  calculated  to  injure  its 
readers,  although  about  this  time  he  found  the 
Methodist  Society  somewhat  too  strict  for  him. 
He  makes  a  curious  remark  on  this  subject :  — 

"  I  well  remember,"  he  says,  "  that  some  years 
before,  Mr.  Wesley  told  his  society  at  Bristol,  in 
my  hearing,  that  he  could  never  keep  a  bookseller 
six  months  in  his  flock." 

His  trade  increased  with  astonishing  rapidity, 
and  the  reason  was  that  he  knew  how  to  buy  and 
sell.  He  abandoned  many  of  the  old  usages  and 
traditions  of  the  book  trade.  He  gave  no  credit, 
which  was  itself  a  startling  innovation  ;  but  his 
master-stroke  was  selling  every  book  at  the  lowest 
price  he  could  afford,  thus  giving  his  customers  a 


JAMES  LACKINGTON.  253 

fair  portion  of  the  benefit  of  his  knowledge  and 
activity.  He  appears  to  have  begun  the  system  by 
which  books  have  now  become  a  part  of  the  fur- 
niture of  every  house.  He  bought  with  extraor- 
dinary boldness,  spending  sometimes  as  much  as 
sixty  thousand  dollars  in  an  afternoon's  sale. 

As  soon  as  he  began  to  live  with  some  liberality 
kind  friends  foretold  his  speedy  ruin.  Or,  as  he 
says :  —  • 

"  When  by  the  advice  of  that  eminent  physician, 
Dr.  Lettsom,  I  purchased  a  horse,  and  saved  my 
life  by  the  exercise  it  afforded  me,  the  old  adage, 
c  Set  a  beggar  on  horseback  and  he  11  ride  to  the 
devil,'  was  deemed  fully  verified." 

But  his  one  horse  became  two  horses,  and  his 
chaise  a  chariot  with  liveried  servants,  in  which  ve- 
hicle, one  summer,  he  made  the  round  of  the  places 
in  which  he  had  lived  as  a  shoemaker,  called  upon 
his  old  employers,  and  distributed  liberal  sums  of 
money  among  his  poor  relations.  So  far  from  be- 
ing ashamed  of  his  business,  he  caused  to  be  en- 
graved  on  all  his  carriage  doors  the  motto  which  he 
considered  the  secret  of  his  success :  — 

SMALL  PROFITS  DO  GREAT  THINGS. 

In  his  old  age  he  rejoined  his  old  friends  'the 
Methodists,  and  he  declares  in  his  last  edition  that, 
if  he  had  never  heard  the  Methodists  preach,  in  all 
probability  he  should  have  remained  through  life 
"  a  poor,  ragged,  dirty  cobbler." 


HORACE   GEEELEY'S  START. 


I  have  seldom  been  more  interested  than  In 
hearing  Horace  Greeley  tell  the  story  of  his  com- 
ing to  New  York  in  1831,  and  gradually  working 
his  way  into  business  there. 

He  was  living  at  the  age  of  twenty  years  with 
his  parents  in  a  small  log-cabin  in  a  new  clearing 
of  Western  Pennsylvania,  about  twenty  miles  from 
Erie.  His  father,  a  Yankee  by  birth,  had  recently 
moved  to  that  region  and  was  trying  to  raise 
sheep  there,  as  he  had  been  accustomed  to  do  in 
Vermont.     The  wolves  were  too  numerous  there. 

It  was  part  of  the  business  of  Horace  and  his 
brother  to  watch  the  flock  of  sheep,  and  sometimes 
they  camped  out  all  night,  sleeping  with  their  feet 
to  the  fire,  Indian  fashion.  He  told  me  that  occa- 
sionally a  pack  of  wolves  would  come  so  near  that  he 
could  see  their  eyeballs  glare  in  the  darkness  and 
hear  them  pant.  Even  as  he  lay  in  the  loft  of  his 
father's  cabin  he  could  hear  them  howling  in  the 
fields.  In  spite  of  all  their  care,  the  wolves  killed 
in  one  season  a  hundred  of  his  father's  sheep,  and 
then  he  gave  up  the  attempt. 


HORACE   GREELEY'S  START.  255 

The  family  were  so  poor  that  it  was  a  matter 
of  doubt  sometimes  whether  they  could  get  food 
enough  to  live  through  the  long  winter ;  and  so 
Horace,  who  had  learned  the  printer's  trade  in 
Vermont,  started  out  on  foot  in  search  of  work  in 
a  village  printing-office.  He  walked  from  village 
to  village,  and  from  town  to  town,  until  at  last  he 
went  to  Erie,  the  largest  place  in  the  vicinity. 

There  he  was  taken  for  a  runaway  apprentice, 
and  certainly  his  appearance  justified  suspicion. 
Tall  and  gawky  as  he  was  in  person,  with  tow-col- 
ored hair,  and  a  scanty  suit  of  shabbiest  homespun, 
his  appearance  excited  astonishment  or  ridicule 
wherever  he  went.  He  had  never  worn  a  good  suit 
of  clothes  in  his  life.  He  had  a  singularly  fair, 
white  complexion,  a  piping,  whining  voice,  and 
these  peculiarities  gave  the  effect  of  his  being  want- 
ing in  intellect.  It  was  not  until  people  conversed 
with  him  that  they  discovered  his  worth  and  intel- 
ligence. He  had  been  an  ardent  reader  from  his 
childhood  up,  and  had  taken  of  late  years  the  most 
intense  interest  in  politics  and  held  very  positive 
opinions,  which  he  defended  in  conversation  with 
great  earnestness  and  ability. 

A  second  application  at  Erie  procured  him  em- 
ployment for  a  few  months  in  the  office  of  the  Erie 
M  Gazette,"  and  he  won  his  way,  not  only  to  the 
respect,  but  to  the  affection,  of  his  companions  and 
his  employer.  That  employer  was  Judge  J.  M. 
Sterrett,  and  from  him  I  heard  many  curious  par- 


256  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

ticulars  of  Horace  Greeley's  residence  in  Erie.  As 
he  was  only  working  in  the  office  as  a  substitute, 
the  return  of  the  absentee  deprived  him  of  his 
place,  and  he  was  obliged  to  seek  work  elsewhere. 
His  employer  said  to  him  one  day  :  — 

"  Now,  Horace,  you  have  a  good  deal  of  money 
coming  to  you  ;  don't  go  about  the  town  any  longer 
in  that  outlandish  rig.  Let  me  give  you  an  order 
on  the  store.     Dress  up  a  little,  Horace." 

The  young  man  looked  down  at  his  clothes  as 
though  he  had  never  seen  them  before,  and  then 
said,  by  way  of  apology  :  — 

"  You  see,  Mr.  Sterrett,  my  father  is  on  a  new 
place,  and  I  want  to  help  him  all  I  can." 

In  fact,  upon  the  settlement  of  his  account  at  the 
end  of  his  seven  months'  labor,  he  had  drawn  for 
his  personal  expenses  six  dollars  only.  Of  the  rest 
of  his  wages  he  retained  fifteen  dollars  for  himself, 
and  gave  all  the  rest,  amounting  to  about  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty  dollars,  to  his  father,  who,  I  am 
afraid,  did  not  make  the  very  best  use  of  all  of  it. 

With  the  great  sum  of  fifteen  dollars  in  his 
pocket,  Horace  now  resolved  upon  a  bold  move- 
ment. After  spending  a  few  days  at  home,  he  tied 
\vp  his  spare  clothes  in  a  bundle,  not  very  large, 
and  took  the  shortest  road  through  the  woods  that 
led  to  the  Erie  Canal.  He  was  going  to  New 
York,  and  he  was  going  cheap  ! 

A  walk  of  sixty  miles  or  so,  much  of  it  through 
the  primeval  forest,  brought  him  to  Buffalo,  where 


HORACE   GREELEY'S  START.  257 

he  took  passage  on  the  Erie  Canal,  and  after  vari- 
ous detentions,  he  reached  Albany  on  a  Thursday 
morning  just  in  time  to  see  the  regular  steamboat 
of  the  day  move  out  into  the  stream.  At  ten 
o'clock  on  the  same  morning  he  embarked  on  board 
of  a  tow-boat,  which  required  nearly  twenty-four 
hours  to  descend  the  river,  and  thus  afforded  him 
ample  time  to  enjoy  the  beauty  of  its  shores. 

On  the  18th  of  August,  1831,  about  sunrise,  he 
set  foot  in  the  city  of  New  York,  then  containing 
about  two  hundred  thousand  inhabitants,  one  sixth 
of  its  present  population.  He  had  managed  his 
affairs  with  such  strict  economy  that  his  journey 
of  six  hundred  miles  had  cost  him  little  more  than 
five  dollars,  and  he  had  ten  left  with  which  to  be- 
gin life  in  the  metropolis.  Tins  sum  of  money  and 
the  knowledge  of  the  printer's  trade  made  up  his 
capital.  There  was  not  a  person  in  all  New  York, 
so  far  as  he  knew,  who  had  ever  seen  him  before. 

His  appearance,  too,  was  much  against  him,  for 
although  he  had  a  really  fine  face,  a  noble  fore- 
head, and  the  most  benign  expression  I  ever  saw 
upon  a  human  countenance,  yet  his  clothes  and 
bearing  quite  spoiled  him.  His  round  jacket  made 
him  look  like  a  tall  boy  who  had  grown  too  fast  for 
his  strength ;  he  stooped  a  little  and  walked  in  a 
loose-jointed  manner.  He  was  very  bashful,  and 
totally  destitute  of  the  power  of  pushing  his  way, 
or  arguing  with  a  man  who  said  "  No  "  to  him.  lie 
had  brought  no  letters  of  recommendation,  and  had 

17 


258  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

no   kind   of   evidence  to  show  that   he   had   even 
learned  his  trade. 

The  first  business  was,  of  course,  to  find  an  ex- 
tremely cheap  boarding-house,  as  he  had  made  up 
his  mind  only  to  try  New  York  as  an  experiment, 
and,  if  he  did  not  succeed  in  finding  work,  to  start 
homeward  while  he  still  had  a  portion  of  his  money. 
After  walking  awhile  he  went  into  what  looked 
to  him  like  a  low-priced  tavern,  at  the  corner  of 
Wall  and  Broad  Streets. 

"  How  much  do  you  charge  for  board  ? '  he 
asked  the  bar-keeper,  who  was  wiping  his  decanters 
and  putting  his  bar  in  trim  for  the  business  of 
the  day. 

The  bar-keeper  gave  the  stranger  a  look-over  and 
said  to  him  :  — 

"  I  guess  we  're  too  high  for  you." 

"  Well  how  much  do  you  charge?  " 

"  Six  dollars." 

"  Yes,  that 's  more  than  I  can  afford." 

He  walked  on  until  he  descried  on  the  North 
River,  near  Washington  Market,  a  boarding-house 
so  very  mean  and  squalid  that  he  was  tempted  to 
go  in  and  inquire  the  price  of  board  there.  The 
price  was  two  dollars  and  a  half  a  week. 

"  Ah  ! '  said  Horace,  "  that  sounds  more  like 
it." 

In  ten  minutes  more  he  was  taking  his  breakfast 
at  the  landlord's  table.  Mr.  Greeley  gratefully  re- 
membered this  landlord,  who  was  a  friendly  Irish- 


HORACE   GREELEY'S  START.  259 

man  by  the  name  of  McGorlick.  Breakfast  done, 
the  new-comer  sallied  forth  in  quest  of  work,  and 
began  by  expending  nearly  half  of  his  capital  in 
improving  his  wardrobe.  It  was  a  wise  action.  He 
that  goes  courting  should  dress  in  his  best,  partic- 
ularly if  he  courts  so  capricious  a  jade  as  Fortune. 

Then  he  began  the  weary  round  of  the  printing- 
offices,  seeking  for  work  and  finding  none,  all  day 
long:.  He  would  enter  an  office  and  ask  in  his 
whining  note  :  — 

"  Do  you  want  a  hand  ?  " 

"  No,"  was  the  invariable  reply ;  upon  receiv- 
ing which  he  left  without  a  word.  Mr.  Greeley 
chuckled  as  he  told  the  reception  given  him  at  the 
office  of  the  "  Journal  of  Commerce,"  a  newspaper 
he  was  destined  to  contend  with  for  many  a  year 
in  the  columns  of  the  "  Tribune." 

"  Do  you  want  a  hand  ?  "  he  said  to  David  Hale, 
one  of  the  owners  of  the  paper. 

Mr.  Hale  looked  at  him  from  head  to  foot,  and 
then  said  :  — 

"  My  opinion  is,  young  man,  that  you  're  a  runa- 
way apprentice,  and  you  'd  better  go  home  to  your 
master." 

The  applicant  tried  to  explain,  but  the  busy  pro- 
prietor merely  replied :  — 

"  Be  off  about  your  business,  and  don't  bother 

us." 

The  young  man  laughed  good-humoredly  and  re- 
sumed his  walk.     He  went  to  bed  Saturday  night 


/ 


260  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

thoroughly  tired  and  a  little  discouraged.  On  Sun- 
day he  walked  three  miles  to  attend  a  church,  and 
remembered  to  the  end  of  his  days  the  delight 
he  had,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  in  hearing  a 
sermon  that  he  entirely  agreed  with.  In  the  mean 
time  he  had  gained  the  good  will  of  his  landlord  and 
the  boarders,  and  to  that  circumstance  he  owed  his 
first  chance  in  the  city.  His  landlord  mentioned 
his  fruitless  search  for  work  to  an  acquaintance  who 
happened  to  call  that  Sunday  afternoon.  That  ac- 
quaintance, who  was  a  shoemaker,  had  accidentally 
heard  that  printers  were  wanted  at  No.  85  Chat- 
ham Street. 

At  half-past  five  on  Monday  morning  Horace 
Greeley  stood  before  the  designated  house,  and 
discovered  the  sign,  "  West's  Printing-Office,"  over 
the  second  story ;  the  ground  floor  being  occupied 
as  a  bookstore.  Not  a  soul  was  stirring  up  stairs 
or  down.  The  doors  were  locked,  and  Horace  sat 
down  on  the  steps  to  wait.  Thousands  of  work- 
men passed  by ;  but  it  was  nearly  seven  before  the 
first  of  Mr.  West's  printers  arrived,  and  he,  too, 
finding  the  door  locked,  sat  down  by  the  side  of  the 
stranger,  and  entered  into  conversation  with  him. 

"  I  saw,"  said  this  printer  to  me  many  years  af- 
ter, "  that  he  was  an  honest,  good  young  man,  and, 
being  a  Vermonter  myself,  I  determined  to  help 
him  if  I  could." 

Thus,  a  second  time  in  New  York  already,  the 
native  quality  of  the  man  gained  him,  at  the  criti- 


HORACE   GREELEY'S  START.  261 

cal  moment  the  advantage  that  decided  his  destiny. 
His  new  friend  did  help  him,  and  it  was  very  much 
through  his  urgent  recommendation  that  the  fore- 
man  of  the  printing-office  gave  him  a  chance.  The 
foreman  did  not  in  the  least  believe  that  the  green- 
looking  young  fellow  before  him  could  set  in  type 
one  page  of  the  polyglot  Testament  for  which  help 
was  needed. 

"  Fix  up  a  case  for  him,"  said  he,  "  and  we'll  see 
if  he  can  do  anything." 

Horace  worked  all  day  with  silent  intensity,  and 
when  he  showed  to  the  foreman  at  night  a  printer's 
proof  of  his  day's  work,  it  was  found  to  be  the 
best  day's  work  that  had  yet  been  done  on  that  most 
difficult  job.  It  was  greater  in  quantity  and  much 
more  correct.  The  battle  was  won.  He  worked 
on  the  Testament  for  several  months,  making  long 
hours  and  earning  only  moderate  wages,  saving  all 
his  surplus  money,  and  sending  the  greater  part  of 
it  to  his  father,  who  was  still  in  debt  for  his  farm 
and  not  sure  of  being  able  to  keep  it. 

Ten  years  passed.  Horace  Greeley  from  jour- 
neyman printer  made  his  way  slowly  to  partner- 
ship in  a  small  printing-office.  He  founded  the 
"  New  Yorker,"  a  weekly  paper,  the  best  periodical 
of  its  class  in  the  United  States.  It  brought  him 
great  credit  and  no  profit. 

In  1840,  when  General  Harrison  was  nominated 
for  the  presidency  against  Martin  Van  Buren,  his 
feelings  as  a  politician  were  deeply  stirred,  and  he 


262  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

started  a  little  campaign  paper  called  "  The  Log- 
Cabin,"  which  was  incomparably  the  most  spirited 
thing  of  the  kind  ever  published  in  the  United 
States.  It  had  a  circulation  of  unprecedented  ex- 
tent, beginning  with  forty-eight  thousand,  and  ris- 
ing week  after  week  until  it  reached  ninety  thou- 
sand. The  price,  however,  was  so  low  that  its 
great  sale  proved  rather  an  embarrassment  than  a 
benefit  to  the  proprietors,  and  when  the  campaign 
ended,  the  firm  of  Horace  Greeley  &  Co.  was 
rather  more  in  debt  than  it  was  when  the  first  num- 
ber of  "  The  Log-Cabin  "  was  published. 

The  little  paper  had  given  the  editor  two  things 
which  go  far  towards  making  a  success  in  business, 
—  great  reputation  and  some  confidence  in  him- 
self. The  first  penny  paper  had  been  started. 
The  New  York  "  Herald  "  was  making  a  great  stir. 
The  "  Sun  "  was  already  a  profitable  sheet.  And 
now  the  idea  occurred  to  Horace  Greeley  to  start  a 
daily  paper  which  should  have  the  merits  of  cheap- 
ness and  abundant  news,  without  some  of  the  qual- 
ities possessed  by  the  others.  He  wished  to  found 
a  cheap  daily  paper  that  should  be  good  and  salu- 
tary, as  well  as  interesting.  The  last  number  of 
"  The  Log-Cabin  "  announced  the  forthcoming 
"  Tribune,"  price  one  cent. 

The  editor  was  probably  not  solvent  when  he 
conceived  the  scheme,  and  he  borrowed  a  thousand 
dollars  of  his  old  friend,  James  Coggeshall,  with 
which  to  buy  the  indispensable  material.    He  began 


HORACE   GREELEY'S  START.  263 

■with  six  hundred  subscribers,  printed  five  thousand 
of  the  first  number,  and  found  it  difficult  to  give 
them  all  away.  The  "  Tribune '  appeared  on  the 
day  set  apart  in  New  York  for  the  funeral  proces- 
sion in  commemoration  of  President  Harrison,  who 
died  a  month  after  his  inauguration. 

It  was  a  chilly,  dismal  day  in  April,  and  all  the 
town  was  absorbed  in  the  imposing  pageant.  The 
receipts  during  the  first  week  were  ninety-two  dol- 
lars ;  the  expenses  five  hundred  and  twenty-five. 
But  the  little  paper  soon  caught  public  attention, 
and  the  circulation  increased  for  three  weeks  at  the 
rate  of  about  three  hundred  a  day.  It  began  its 
fourth  week  with  six  thousand ;  its  seventh  week, 
with  eleven  thousand.  The  first  number  contained 
four  columns  of  advertisements  ;  the  twelfth,  nine 
columns  ;  the  hundredth,  thirteen  columns. 

In  a  word,  the  success  of  the  paper  was  immedi- 
ate and  very  great.  It  grew  a  little  faster  than  the 
machinery  for  producing  it  could  be  provided.  Its 
success  was  due  chiefly  to  the  fact  that  the  origi- 
nal idea  of  the  editor  was  actually  carried  out.  He 
aimed  to  produce  a  paper  which  should  morally 
benefit  the  public.  It  was  not  always  right,  but 
it  always  meant  to  be. 


JAMES  GORDON  BENNETT, 

AND  HOW  HE  FOUNDED  HIS  HERALD. 


A  cellar  in  Nassau  Street  was  the  first  office 
of  the  "  Herald."  It  was  a  real  cellar,  not  a  base- 
ment, lighted  only  from  the  street,  and  consequently 
very  dark  except  near  its  stone  steps.  The  first  fur- 
niture of  this  office,  —  as  I  was  told  by  the  late  Mr. 
Go  wans,  who  kept  a  bookstore  near  by,  —  consisted 
of  the  following  articles  :  — 

Item,  one  wooden  chair.  Item,  two  empty  flour 
barrels  with  a  wide,  dirty  pine  board  laid  upon 
them,  to  serve  as  desk  and  table.  End  of  the  in- 
ventory. 

The  two  barrels  stood  about  four  feet  apart,  and 
one  end  of  the  board  was  pretty  close  to  the  steps, 
so  that  passers-by  could  see  the  pile  of  "  Heralds  " 
which  were  placed  upon  it  every  morning  for  sale. 
Scissors,  pens,  inkstand,  and  pencil  were  at  the 
other  end,  leaving  space  in  the  middle  for  an  edito- 
rial desk. 

This  was  in  the  summer  of  1835,  when  General 
Jackson  was  President  of  the  United  States,  and 
Martin  Van  Buren  the  favorite  candidate  for  the 


JAMES  GORDON  BENNETT.  265 

succession.  If  the  reader  had  been  in  New  York 
then,  and  had  wished  to  buy  a  copy  of  the  saucy 
little  paper,  which  every  morning  amused  and. of- 
fended the  decorous  people  of  that  day,  he  would 
have  gone  down  into  this  underground  office,  and 
there  he  would  have  found  its  single  chair  occupied 
by  a  tall  and  vigorous-looking  man  about  forty 
years  of  age,  with  a  slight  defect  in  one  of  his  eyes, 
dressed  in  a  clean,  but  inexpensive  suit  of  summer 
clothes. 

This  was  James  Gordon  Bennett,  proprietor,  ed- 
itor, reporter,  book-keeper,  clerk,  office-boy,  and 
everything  else  there  was  appertaining  to  the  con- 
trol and  management  of  the  New  York  "  Herald," 
price  one  cent.  The  reader  would  perhaps  have 
said  to  him,  "  I  want  to-day's  '  Herald.'  Bennett 
would  have  looked  up  from  his  writing,  and  pointed, 
without  speaking,  to  the  pile  of  papers  at  the  end 
of  the  board.  The  visitor  would  have  taken  one 
and  added  a  cent  to  the  pile  of  copper  coin  adja- 
cent. If  he  had  lingered  a  few  minutes,  the  busy 
writer  would  not  have  regarded  him,  and  he  could 
have  watched  the  subsequent  proceedings  without 
disturbing  him.  In  a  few  moments  a  woman  might 
have  come  down  the  steps  into  the  subterranean 
office,  who  answered  the  editor's  inquiring  look  by 
telling  him  that  she  wanted  a  place  as  cook,  and 
wished  him  to  write  an  advertisement  for  her.  This 
would  have  been  entirely  a  matter  of  course,  for  in 
the  prospectus  of  the  paper  it  was  expressly  stated 


266  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

that  persons  could  have  their  advertisements  writ- 
ten for  them  at  the  office. 

The  editor  himself  would  have  written  the  ad- 
vertisement for  her  with  the  velocity  of  a  practiced 
hand,  then  read  it  over  to  her,  taking  particular 
pains  to  get  the  name  spelled  right,  and  the  address 
correctly  stated. 

"  How  much  is  it,  sir?  " 

"Twenty-five  cents." 

The  money  paid,  the  editor  would  instantly  have 
resumed  his  writing.  Such  visitors,  however,  were 
not  numerous,  for  the  early  numbers  of  the  paper 
show  very  few  advertisements,  and  the  paper  itself 
was  little  larger  than  a  sheet  of  foolscap.  Small 
as  it  was,  it  was  with  difficulty  kept  alive  from 
week  to  week,  and  it  was  never  too  certain  as  the 
week  drew  to  a  close  whether  the  proprietor  would 
be  able  to  pay  the  printer's  bill  on  Saturday  night, 
and  thus  secure  its  reappearance  on  Monday  morn- 
ing. 

There  were  times  when,  after  paying  all  the  un- 
postponable  claims,  he  had  twenty-five  cents  left, 
or  less,  as  the  net  result  of  his  week's  toil.  He 
worked  sixteen,  seventeen,  eighteen  hours  a  day, 
struggling  unaided  to  force  his  little  paper  upon 
an  indifferent  if  not  a  hostile  public. 

James  Gordon  Bennett,  you  will  observe,  was 
forty  years  old  at  this  stage  of  his  career.  Gener- 
ally a  man  who  is  going  to  found  anything  ex- 
traordinary has  laid  a  deep  foundation,  and  got  his 


JAMES   GORDON  BENNETT.  267 

structure  a  good  way  above  ground  before  he  is 
forty  years  of  age.  But  there  was  he,  past  forty, 
and  still  wrestling  with  fate,  happy  if  he  could  get 
three  dollars  a  week  over  for  his  board.  Yet  he 
was  a  strong  man,  gifted  with  a  keen  intelligence, 
strictly  temperate  in  his  habits,  and  honest  in  his 
dealings.  The  only  point  against  him  was,  that  he 
had  no  power  and  apparently  no  desire  to  make 
personal  friends.  He  was  one  of  those  who  cannot 
easily  ally  themselves  with  other  men,  but  must 
fight  their  fight  alone,  victors  or  vanquished. 

A   native   of    Scotland,  he  was    born  a  Roman 
Catholic,  and  was  partly  educated  for  the  priest- 
hood in  a  Catholic  seminary  there ;  but  he  was  di- 
verted  from  the  priestly  office,  as  it  appears,  by 
reading  Byron,  Scott,  and  other  literature  of  the 
day.       At   twenty  he   was  a  romantic,  impulsive, 
and  innocent  young  man,  devouring  the  "Waverley 
novels,  and  in  his  vacations  visiting  with  rapture 
the  scenes  described  in  them.     The  book,  however, 
which  decided  the  destiny  of  this  student  was  of  a 
very  different  description,  being  no  other  than  the 
"Autobiography  of  Benjamin  Franklin,"  a  book 
which  was  then  read  by  almost  every  boy  who  read 
at  all.     One  day,  at  Aberdeen,  a  young  acquaint- 
ance met  him  in  the  street,  and  said  to  him  :  — 
"  I  am  going  to  America,  Bennett." 
"  To  America !     When* ?     Where  ?  " 
"  I  am  going  to  Halifax  on  the  6th  of  April."" 
"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  Bennett,  "  I  '11  go  with 


268  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

you.  I  want  to  see  the  place  where  Franklin  was 
born." 

Three  months  after  he  stepped  ashore  at  the 
beautiful  town  of  Halifax  in  Nova  Scotia,  with  only- 
money  enough  in  his  pocket  to  pay  his  board  for 
about  two  weeks.  Gaunt  poverty  was  upon  him 
soon,  and  he  was  glad  to  earn  a  meagre  subsistence 
for  a  few  weeks,  by  teaching.  He  used  to  speak  of 
his  short  residence  in  Halifax  as  a  time  of  severe 
privation  and  anxiety,  for  it  was  a  place  then  of  no 
great  wealth,  and  had  little  to  offer  to  a  penniless 
adventurer,  such  as  he  was. 

He  made  his  way  to  Portland,  in  Maine,  before 
the  first  winter  set  in,  and  thence  found  passage  in 
a  schooner  bound  to  Boston.  In  one  of  the  early 
numbers  of  his  paper  he  described  his  arrival  at 
that  far-famed  harbor,  and  his  emotions  on  catch- 
ing his  first  view  of  the  city.  The  paragraph  is 
not  one  which  we  should  expect  from  the  editor  of 
the  "Herald,"  but  I  have  no  doubt  it  expressed 
his  real  feelings  in  1819. 

"I  was  alone,  young,  enthusiastic,  uninitiated. 
In  my  more  youthful  days  I  had  devoured  the  en- 
chanting life  of  Benjamin  Franklin  written  by 
himself,  and  Boston  appeared  to  me  as  the  residence 
of  a  friend,  an  associate,"  an  acquaintance.  I  had 
also  drunk  in  the  history  of  the  holy  struggle  for 
independence,  first  made  on  Bunker  Hill.  Dor- 
chester Heights  were  to  my  youthful  imagination 
almost  as  holy  ground  as  Arthur's  Seat  or  Salis- 


JAMES   GORDON  BEXXETT.  269 

bury  Craigs.  Beyond  was  Boston,  her  glittering 
spires  rising  into  the  blue  vault  of  heaven  like  bea- 
cons to  light  a  world  to  liberty." 

In  the  glow  of  his  first  enthusiasm,  and  having 
nothing  else  to  do,  he  spent  several  days  in  visiting 
the  scenes  of  historic  events  with  which  his  read- 
ing had  made  him  familiar.  But  his  slender  jmrse 
grew  daily  more  attenuated,  and  he  soon  found 
himself  in  a  truly  desperate  situation,  a  friendless, 
unprepossessing  young  man,  knowing  no  trade  or 
profession,  and  without  an  acquaintance  in  the  city. 
His  last  penny  was  spent.  A  whole  day  passed 
without  his  tasting  food.  A  second  day  went  by, 
and  still  he  fasted.  He  could  find  no  employment, 
and  was  too  proud  to  beg.  In  this  terrible  strait 
he  was  walking  upon  Boston  Common,  wondering 
how  it  could  be  that  he,  so  willing  to  work,  and 
with  such  a  capacity  for  work,  should  be  obliged 
to  pace  the  streets  of  a  wealthy  city,  idle  and  starv- 


ing ! 


"  How  shall  I  get  something  to  eat  ?  "  he  said  to 
himself. 

At  that  moment  he  saw  something  glittering 
upon  the  ground  before  him,  which  proved  to  be  a 
silver  coin  of  the  value  of  twelve  and  a  half  cents. 
Cheered  by  this  strange  coincidence,  and  refreshed 
by  food,  he  went  with  renewed  spirit  in  search  of 
work.  He  found  it  almost  immediately.  A  coun- 
tryman of  his  own,  of  the  firm  of  Wells  &  Lilly, 
publishers  and  booksellers,  gave  him  a  situation  as 


270  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

clerk  and  proof-reader,  and  thus  put  hiin  upon  the 
track  which  led  him  to  his  future  succes  - . 

This  firm  lasted  only  long  enough  to  give  him 
the  means  of  getting  to  Xew  York,  where  he  ar- 
rived in  1822,  almost  as  poor  as  when  he  left  Scot- 
land. He  tried  many  occupations,  —  a  school,  lec- 
tures upon  political  economy,  instruction  in  the 
Spanish  language ;  but  drifted  at  length  into  the 
daily  press  as  drudge-of -all- work,  at  wages  varying 
from  five  to  eisht  dollars  a  week,  with  occasional 
chances  to  increase  his  revenue  a  little  by  the  odd 
jobbery  of  literature. 

Journalism  was  then  an  unknown  art  in  the 
United  States,  and  no  newspaper  had  anything  at 
all  resembling  an  editorial  corps.  The  most  im- 
portant daily  newspapers  of  New  York  were  car- 
ried on  by  the  editor,  aided  by  one  or  two  ill-paid 
assistants,  with  a  possible  correspondent  in  Wash- 
ington during  the  session  of  Congress.  And  that 
proved  to  be  James  Gordon  Bennett's  opportunity 
of  getting  his  head  a  little  above  water.  He  filled 
the  place  one  winter  of  Washington  corespondent 
to  the  Xew  York  "  Enquirer  ;  "  and  while  doing  so 
he  fell  in  by  chance  in  the  Congressional  library 
with  a  volume  of  Horace  Walpole's  gossiping 
ciety  letters.  He  was  greatly  taken  with  them,  and 
he  said  to  himself :  "  Why  not  try  a  few  L  on 

a  similar  plan  from  Washington,  to  be  published 
in  Xew  York?'' 

He   tried   the   experiment.      The   letters,  which 


JAMES  GORDON  BENNETT.  271 

were  full  of  personal  anecdotes,  and  gave  descrip- 
tions of  noted  individuals,  proved  very  attractive, 
and  gave  him  a  most  valuable  hint  as  to  what 
readers  take  an  interest  in.  The  letters  being 
anonymous,  he  remained  poor  and  unknown.  He 
made  several  attempts  to  get  into  business  for  him- 
self. He  courted  and  served  the  politicians.  He 
conducted  party  newspapers  for  them,  without  po- 
litical convictions  of  his  own.  But  when  he  had 
done  the  work  of  carrying  elections  and  creating 
popularity,  he  did  not  find  the  idols  he  had  set  up 
at  all  disposed  to  reward  the  obscure  scribe  to 
whom  they  owed  their  elevation. 

But  all  this  while  he  was  learning  his  trade, 
and  though  he  lived  under  demoralizing  influences, 
he  never  lapsed  into  bad  habits.  What  he  said  of 
himself  one  dav  was  strictly  true,  and  it  was  one 
of  the  most  material  causes  of  his  final  victory :  — 

"  Social  glasses  of  wine  are  my  aversion  :  public 
dinners  are  my  abomination  :  all  species  of  gor- 
mandizing, my  utter  scorn  and  contempt.  When  I 
am  himgry,  I  eat :  when  thirst}',  drink.  AVine  and 
viands,  taken  for  society,  or  to  stimulate  conversa- 
tion, tend  only  to  dissipation,  indolence,  poverty, 
contempt,  and  death.'* 

At  lenolh,  earlv  in  1835,  having  accumulated  two 
or  three  himdred  dollars,  he  conceived  the  notion 
of  starting  a  penny  paper.  First  he  looked  about 
for  a  partner.  He  proposed  the  scheme  to  a  strug- 
gling, ambitious  young  printer  and  journalist,  be- 


272  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

ginning  to  be  known  in  Nassau  Street,  named  Hor- 
ace Greeley.  I  have  heard  Mr.  Greeley  relate  the 
interview. 

"Bennett  came  to  me,"  he  said,  "  as  I  was  stand- 
ing at  the  case  setting  type,  and  putting  his  hand  in 
his  pocket  pulled  out  a  handful  of  money.  There 
was  some  gold  among  it,  more  silver,  and  I  think 
one  fifty-dollar  bill.  He  said  he  had  between  two 
and  three  hundred  dollars,  and  wanted  me  to  go  in 
with  him  and  set  up  a  daily  paper,  the  printing  to 
be  done  in  our  office,  and  he  to  be  the  editor. 

"  I  told  him  he  had  n't  money  enough.  He  went 
away,  and  soon  after  got  other  printers  to  do  the 
work  and  the  '  Herald  '  appeared." 

This  was  about  six  years  before  the  "Tribune  ' 
was  started.  Mr.  Greeley  was  right  in  saying  that 
his  future  rival  in  journalism  had  not  money  enough. 
The  little  "  Herald  "  was  lively,  smart,  audacious, 
and  funny  ;  it  pleased  a  great  many  people  and 
made  a  considerable  stir  ;  but  the  price  was  too 
low,  and  the  range  of  journalism  then  was  very 
narrow.  It  is  highly  probable  that  the  editor 
would  have  been  baffled  after  all,  but  for  one  of 
those  lucky  accidents  which  sometimes  happen  to 
men  who  are  bound  to  succeed. 

There  was  a  young  man  then  in  the  city  named 
Brandreth,  who  had  brought  a  pill  over  wTith  him 
from  England,  and  was  looking  about  in  New  York 
for  some  cheap,  effective  way  of  advertising  his 
pill.     He  visited  Bennett  in  his  cellar  and  made  an 


JAMES  GORDON  BENNETT.  273 

arrangement  to  pay  him  a  certain  sum  every  week 
for  a  certain  space  in  the  columns  of  the  "  Herald. " 
It  was  the  very  thing"  he  wanted,  a  little  certainty 
to  help  him  over  that  awful  day  of  judgment  which 
comes  every  week  to  struggling  enterprises,  —  Sat- 
urday night  ! 

Still,  the  true  cause  of  the  final  success  of  the 
paper  was  the  indomitable  character  of  its  founder, 
his  audacity,  his  persistence,  his  power  of  contin- 
uous labor,  and  the  inexhaustible  vivacity  of  his 
mind.  After  a  }~ear  of  vicissitude  and  doubt,  he 
doubled  the  price  of  his  paper,  and  from  that  time 
his  prosperity  was  uninterrupted.  Pie  turned  ev- 
erything to  account.  Six  times  he  was  assaulted 
by  persons  whom  he  had  satirized  in  his  newspaper, 
and  every  time  he  made  it  tell  upon  his  circulation. 
On  one  occasion,  for  example,  after  relating  how 
his  head  had  been  cut  open  by  one  of  his  former 
employers,  he  added  :  — 

M  The  fellow  no  doubt  wanted  to  let  out  the  never 
failing  supply  of  good-humor  and  wit  which  has 
created  such  a  reputation  for  the  '  Herald."  .  .  . 
He  has  not  injured  the  skull.  My  ideas  in  a  few 
days  will  flowr  as  freshly  as  ever,  and  he  will  find 
it  so  to  hi  - 

In  this  humble,  audacious  manner  was  founded 
the  newspaper  which,  in  the  course  of  forty-eight 
years,  has  grown  to  be  one  of  national  and  interna- 
tional importance.     Its  founder  died  in  1872,  aged 

seventy-seven  years,  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  largest 

18 


274  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

revenue  which  had  ever  resulted  from  journalism  in 
the  United  States,  and  leaving  to  his  only  son  the 
most  valuable  newspaper  property,  perhaps,  in  the 
world. 

That  son,  the  present  proprietor,  has  greatly  im- 
proved the  "  Herald."  He  possesses  his  father's 
remarkable  journalistic  tact,  with  less  objectionable 
views  of  the  relation  of  the  daily  paper  to  the  pub- 
lic. His  great  enterprises  have  been  bold,  far- 
reaching,  almost  national  in  their  character,  Mr. 
Frederick  Hudson,  who  was  for  many  years  the 
managing  editor  of  the  paper,  has  the  following  in- 
teresting paragraph  concerning  father  and  son :  — 

"  Somewhere  about  the  year  1866,  James  Gor- 
don Bennett,  Sr.,  inducted  James  Gordon  Bennett, 
Jr.,  into  the  mysteries  of  journalism.  One  of  his 
first  coups  was  the  Prusso- Austrian  war.  The  ca- 
ble transmitted  the  whole  of  the  King  of  Prussia's 
important  speech  after  the  battle  of  Sadowa  and 
peace  with  Austria,  costing  in  tolls  seven  thousand 
dollars  in  gold." 

He  has  followed  this  bold  coup  with  many  sim- 
ilar ones,  and  not  a  few  that  surpassed  it.  Seven 
thousand  dollars  seems  a  good  deal  of  money  to 
pay  for  a  single  feature  of  one  number  of  a  daily 
paper.  It  was  not  so  much  for  a  paper,  single  is- 
sues of  which  have  yielded  half  as  much  as  that  in 
clear  profit.     And  the  paper  was  born  in  a  cellar  ! 


THREE  JOHN  WALTERS, 

AND   THEIR  NEWSPAPER. 


The  reader,  perhaps,  does  not  know  why  the 
London  "  Times  "  is  the  first  journal  of  Europe.  I 
will  tell  him. 

The  starting  of  this  great  newspaper  ninety-nine 
years  ago  was  a  mere  incident  in  the  development 
of  another  business.  Almost  every  one  who  has 
stood  in  a  printing-office  watching  compositors  set 
type  must  have  sometimes  asked  himself,  why  not 
have  whole  words  cast  together,  instead  of  oblig- 
ing the  printer  to  pick  up  each  letter  separately  ? 
Such  words  as  and,  the,  but,  if,  is,  and  even  larger 
words,  like  although  and  notwithstanding ',  occur 
very  often  in  all  compositions.  How  easy  it  would 
be,  inexperienced  persons  think,  to  take  up  a  long 
word,  such  as  extraordinary,  and  place  it  in  posi- 
tion at  one  stroke.  I  confess  that  I  had  this  idea 
myself,  long  before  I  knew  that  any  one  else  had 
ever  had  it. 

In  the  }fear  1785  there  was  a  printer  in  London 
named  John  Walter,  well-established  in  business, 
who  was  fully  resolved  on  giving  this  system  a  trial. 


276  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

At  great  expense  and  trouble  lie  had  all  the  com- 
monest words  and  phrases  cast  together.  He 
would  give  his  type-founder  an  order  like  this :  — 

Send  me  a  hundredweight,  made  up  in  separate 
pounds,  of  heat,  cold,  icet,  dry,  murder,  fire,  dread- 
fid  robbery,  atrocious  outrage,  fearful  calamity, 
and  alarming  exjolosion. 

This  system  he  called  logographic  printing,  — 
logographic  being  a  combination  of  two  Greek 
wTords  signifying  word-writing.  In  order  to  give 
publicity  to  the  new  system,  on  which  he  held  a 
patent,  as  well  as  to  afford  it  a  fuller  trial,  he 
started  a  newspaper,  which  he  called  the  "Daily 
Universal  Register."  The  newspaper  had  some  lit- 
tle success  from  the  beginning;  but  the  logographic 
printing  system  would  not  work.  Not  only  did  the 
compositors  place  obstacles  in  the  way,  but  the  sys- 
tem itself  presented  difficulties  which  neither  John 
Walter  nor  any  subsequent  experimenter  has  been 
able  to  surmount. 

"  The  whole  English  language,"  said  Walter,  in 
one  of  his  numerous  addresses  to  the  public,  "  lay 
before  me  in  a  confused  arrangement.  It  consisted 
of  about  ninety  thousand  words.  This  multitudi- 
nous mass  I  reduced  to  about  five  thousand,  by 
separating  the  parcels,  and  removing  the  obsolete 
words,  technical  terms,  and  common  terminations." 

After  years  of  labor  this  most  resolute  and  ten- 

%} 

acious  of  men  was  obliged  to  give  it  up.  It  was  too 
expensive,  too  cumbersome,  too  difficult ;  it  required 


THREE  JOHN  WALTERS.  277 

a  vast  amount  of  space  ;  and,  in  short,  it  was  a 
system  which  could  not,  and  cannot,  be  worked  to 
profit.  But  though  the  logographic  printing  was 
a  failure,  the  "  Daily  Universal  Register "  'proved 
more  and  more  successful.  It  was  a  dingy  little 
sheet,  about  twice  as  large  as  a  sheet  of  foolscap, 
without  a  word  of  editorial,  and  containing  a  small 
number  of  well  -  selected  paragraphs  of  news.  It 
had  also  occasionally  a  short  notice  of  the  plays 
of  the  night  before,  and  a  few  items  of  what  we 
now  call  society  gossip.  The  advertisements,  after 
the  paper  had  been  in  existence  three  years,  aver- 
aged about  fifty  a  day,  most  of  them  very  short. 
Its  price  was  threepence,  English,  equal  to  about 
twelve  cents  of  our  present  currency.  The  paper 
upon  which  it  was  printed  was  coarse  and  cheap. 
In  the  third  year  of  its  existence,  on  the  first  of 
January,  1788,  the  name  was  changed  to  "  The 
Times."  The  editor  humorously  explained  the 
reasons  for  changing  the  name :  — 

"  i  Boy,  bring  me  the  "  Register."  '  The  waiter 
answers,  '  Sir,  we  have  no  library,  but  you  may  see 
it  in  the  Xew  Exchange  Coffee  House.'  '  Then  I 
will  see  it  there,'  answers  the  disappointed  politi- 
cian, and  he  goes  to  the  Xew  Exchange  Coffee 
House,  and  calls  for  the  ■  Register  ' ;  upon  which 
the  waiter  tells  him  he  cannot  have  it,  as  he  is  not 
a  subscriber  ;  or  presents  him  with  the  '  Court  and 
City  Register,'  the  '  Old  Annual  Register,'  or  the 
'  New  Annual  Register.'  " 


278  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

John  Walter  was  not  what  is  commonly  called 
an  educated  man.  He  was  a  brave  and  honest 
Englishman,  instinctively  opposed  to  jobbery,  and 
to  all  the  other  modes  by  which  a  corrupt  govern- 
ment plunders  a  laborious  people.  The  consequence 
was  that  during  the  first  years  of  his  editorial  life 
he  was  frequently  in  very  hot  water.  When  "  The 
Times '  had  been  in  existence  little  more  than  a 
year,  he  took  the  liberty  of  making  a  remark  upon 
the  Duke  of  York,  one  of  the  king's  dissolute  sons, 
saying  that  the  conduct  of  his  Royal  Highness  had 
been  such  as  to  incur  His  Majesty's  just  disappro- 
bation. 

For  this  offense  he  was  arrested  and  put  on  trial 
for  libel.  Being  convicted,  he  was  sentenced  to  pay 
a  fine  of  fifty  pounds,  to  undergo  a  year's  imprison- 
ment in  Newgate,  to  stand  in  the  pillory  for  one 
hour,  and  give  bonds  for  his  good  behavior  for  the 
next  seven  years.  While  he  was  still  in  prison,  he 
was  convicted  of  two  libels :  first  for  saying  that 
both  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  the  Duke  of  York 
had  incurred  the  just  disapprobation  of  the  king  ; 
and  secondly,  for  saying  that  the  Duke  of  Clarence, 
another  son  of  George  III.,  an  officer  in  the  navy, 
had  left  his  station  without  the  permission  of  his 
commanding  officer.  For  these  offenses  he  was 
condemned  to  pay  fines  amounting  to  two  hundred 
pounds,  and  to  suffer  a  second  year's  imprisonment. 
His  first  year  he  served  out  fully,  and  four  months 
of  the  second,  when  by  the  intercession  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales  he  was  released. 


THREE  JOHN   WALTERS.  279 

From  this  period  the  newspaper  appears  to  have 
gone  forward,  without  any  interruption,  to  the  pres- 
ent day.  In  due  time  John  Walter  withdrew  from 
the  management,  and  gave  it  up  to  his  eldest  son, 
John  Walter  the  second,  who  seems  to  have  pos- 
sessed his  father's  resolution  and  energy,  with  more 
knowledge  of  the  world  and  a  better  education.  It 
was  he  who  took  the  first  decisive  step  toward 
placing  "  The  Times  '  at  the  head  of  journalism. 
For  many  years  the  Walters  had  been  printers  to 
the  custom  house,  a  post  of  considerable  profit. 
In  1810  the  newspaper  discovered  and  exposed 
corrupt  practices  in  the  Navy  Department,  —  prac- 
tices which  were  subsequently  condemned  by  an 
investigating  commission.  The  administration  de- 
prived the  fearless  editor  of  the  custom  house  busi- 
ness. As  this  was  not  in  accordance  with  the 
usages  of  English  politics,  it  made  a  great  outcry, 
and  the  editor  was  given  to  understand  that,  if  he 
would  wink  at  similar  abuses  in  future,  the  pub- 
lic printing  should  be  restored  to  him.  This  of- 
fer he  declined,  saying  that  he  would  enter  into  no 
engagements  and  accept  no  favors  which  would 
diminish,  in  any  degree  whatever,  the  independence 
of  the  paper. 

This  was  an  immense  point  gained.  It  was,  as 
I  have  said,  the  first  step  toward  greatness.  Nor 
do  I  believe  that  any  newspaper  has  ever  attained 
a  genuine  and  permanent  standing  in  a  commu- 
nity until  it  has  first  conquered  a  substantial  in- 


280  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

dependence.  The  administration  then  tried  to  ac- 
complish its  purpose  in  another  way.  During  the 
gigantic  wars  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  extending 
over  most  of  the  first  fifteen  years  of  the  present 
century,  "The  Times  "  surpassed  all  newspapers  in 
procuring  early  intelligence  from  the  seat  of  war. 
The  government  stooped  to  the  pettiness  of  stop- 
ping at  the  outposts  all  packages  addressed  to 
"  The  Times,"  while  allowing  dispatches  for  the 
ministerial  journals  to  pass.  Foreign  ships  bound 
to  London  were  boarded  at  Gravesend,  and  papers 
addressed  to  "  The  Times r  were  taken  from  the 
captain.  The  editor  remonstrated  to  the  Home 
Secretary.  He  was  informed  that  he  might  re- 
ceive his  foreign  papers  as  a  favor  from  govern- 
ment. Knowing  that  this  would  be  granted  in 
the  expectation  of  its  modifying  the  spirit  and 
tone  of  the  newspaper,  he  declined  to  accept  as  a 
favor  that  which  he  claimed  as  a  right.  The  con- 
sequence was  that  the  paper  suffered  much  in- 
convenience from  the  loss  or  delay  of  imported 
packages.  But  this  inconvenience  was  of  small 
account  compared  with  the  prestige  which  such 
complimentary  persecution  conferred. 

Another  remarkable  feature  of  the  system  upon 
which  "The  Times"  has  been  conducted  is -the 
liberality  with  which  it  has  compensated  those  who 
served  it.  Writing  is  a  peculiar  kind  of  industry, 
and  demands  so  strenuous  and  intense  an  exertion 
of  the  vital  forces,  that  no  one  will  ever  get  good 


THREE  JOHN  WALTERS.  281 

writing  clone  who  compensates  it  on  ordinary  com- 
mercial principles.  The  rule  o£  supply  and  de- 
mand can  never  apply  to  this  case.  There  are 
two  things  which  the  purchaser  of  literary  labor 
can  do  towards  getting  a  high  quality  of  writing. 
One  is,  to  give  the  writer  the  amplest  motive  to  do 
his  best ;  and  the  other  is,  to  prevent  his  writing 
too  much.  Both  these  things  the  conductors  of 
"  The  Times  "  have  systematically  done.  It  is  their 
rule  to  pay  more  for  literary  labor  than  any  one 
else  pays  for  the  same  labor,  more  than  the  writer 
himself  would  think  of  demanding,  and  also  to  af- 
ford intervals  of  repose  after  periods  of  severe  ex- 
ertion. 

Until  the  year  1814,  all  the  printing  in  the 
world  was  done  by  hand,  and  "  The  Times  "  could 
only  be  struck  off  at  the  rate  of  four  hundred  and 
fifty  copies  an  hour.  Hence  the  circulation  of  the 
paper,  when  it  had  reached  three  or  four  thousand 
copies  a  day,  had  attained  the  utmost  development 
then  supposed  to  be  possible ;  and  when  such  news 
came  as  that  of  the  battle  of  Austerlitz,  Trafalgar, 
or  Waterloo,  the  edition  was  exhausted  long  before 
the  demand  was  supplied.  There  was  a  compos- 
itor in  the  office  of  "  The  Times,"  named  Thomas 
Martyn,  who,  as  early  as  1804,  conceived  the  idea 
of  applying  Watt's  improved  steam  -  engine  to  a 
printing  press.  He  showed  his  model  to  John  Wal- 
ter, who  furnished  him  with  money  and  room  in 
which  to  continue  his  experiments,  and  perfect  his 


282  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

machine.  But  the  pressmen  pursued  the  inventor 
with  such  blind,  infuriate  hate,  that  the  man  was 
in  terror  of  his  life  from  day  to  day,  and  the 
scheme  was  given  up. 

Ten  years  later  another  ingenious  inventor, 
named  Konig,  procured  a  patent  for  a  steam-press, 
and  Mr.  Walter  determined  to  give  his  invention  a 
trial  at  all  hazards.  The  press  was  secretly  set  up 
in  another  building,  and  a  few  men,  pledged  to  se- 
crecy, were  hired  and  put  in  training  to  work  it. 
On  the  night  of  the  trial  the  pressmen  in  "  The 
Times '  building  were  told  that  the  paper  would 
not  go  to  press  until  very  late,  as  important  news 
was  expected  from  the  Continent.  At  six  in  the 
morning  John  Walter  went  into  the  press-room, 
and  announced  to  the  men  that  the  whole  edition  of 
"  The  Times ':  had  been  printed  by  steam  during 
the  night,  and  that  thenceforward  the  steam-press 
would  be  regularly  used.  He  told  the  men  that  if 
they  attempted  violence  there  was  a  force  at  hand 
to  suppress  it,  but  if  they  behaved  well  no  man 
should  be  a  loser  by  the  invention.  They  should 
either  remain  in  their  situations,  or  receive  full 
wages  until  they  could  procure  others.  This  con- 
duct in  a  rich  and  powerful  man  was  no  more  than 
decent.     The  men  accepted  his  terms  with  alacrity. 

A  great  secret  of  "  The  Times'  "  popularity  has 
been  its  occasional  advocacy  of  the  public  interest 
to  its  own  temporary  loss.  Early  in  its  history  it 
ridiculed  the  advertisers  of  quack  medicines,  and 


THREE  JOHN  WALTERS.  283 

has  never  hesitated  to  expose  unsound  projects 
though  ever  so  profusely  advertised.  During  the 
railroad  mania  of  1845,  when  the  railroad  adver- 
tisements in  "  The  Times  "  averaged  sixty  thousand 
dollars  a  week,  it  earnestly,  eloquently,  and  every 
day,  week  after  week,  exposed  the  empty  and  ru- 
inous nature  of  the  railwav  schemes.  It  continued 
this  course  until  the  mighty  collapse  came  which 
fulfilled,  its  own  prophecies,  and  paralyzed  for  a 
time  the  business  of  the  country. 

Was  this  pure  philanthropy  ?  It  was  some- 
thing much  rarer  than  that  —  it  was  good  sense. 
It  was  sound  judgment.  It  was  not  killing  the 
goose  that  laid  the  golden  egg. 

Old  readers  of  the  London  "  Times  "  were  a  lit- 
tle surprised,  perhaps,  to  see  the  honors  paid  by 
that  journal  to  its  late  editor-in-chief.  An  obit- 
uary notice  of  several  columns  was  surrounded  by 
black  lines  ;  a  mark  of  respect  which  the  paper 
would  pay  only  to  members  of  the  royal  family,  or 
to  some  public  man  of  universal  renown.  Never 
before,.  I  believe,  did  this  newspaper  avow  to  the 
world  that  its  editor  had  a  name ;  and  the  editor 
himself  usually  affected  to  conceal  his  professional 
character.  Former  editors,  in  fact,  would  flatly 
deny  their  connection  with  the  paper,  and  made 
a  great  secret  of  a  fact  which  was  no  secret  at  all*- 

Mr.  Carlyle,  in  his  "  Life  of  Sterling,"  gives  a  cu- 
rious illustration  of  this.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  in  1835, 
upon  resigning  his  ministry,  wrote  a  letter  to  the 


284  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

editor  of  "  The  Times,"  thanking  him  for  the  pow- 
erful support  which  his  administration  had  received 
from  that  journal.  Sir  Robert  Peey  did  not  pre- 
sume to  address  this  letter  to  any  individual  by- 
name, and  he  declared  in  this  letter  that  the  editor 
was  unknown  to  him  even  by  sight.  Edward  Ster- 
ling replied  in  a  lofty  tone,  very  much  as  one  king 
might  reply  to  another,  and  signed  the  letter  sim- 
ply "  The  Editor  of  '  The  Times.'  " 

But  all  this  is  changed.  The  affectation  of  se- 
crecy, long  felt  to  be  ridiculous,  has  been  aban- 
doned, and  the  editor  now  circulates  freely  among 
his  countrymen  in  his  true  character,  as  the  con- 
ductor of  the  first  journal  in  Europe.  At  his 
death  he  receives  the  honors  due  to  the  office  he 
holds  and  the  power  he  exerts,  and  his  funeral  is 
publicly  attended  by  his  associates.  This  is  as  it 
should  be.  Journalism  has  now  taken  its  place  as 
one  of  the  most  important  of  the  liberal  profes- 
sions. Next  to  statesmanship,  next  to  the  actual 
conduct  of  public  affairs,  the  editor  of  a  leading 
newspaper  fills,  perhaps,  the  most  important  place 
in  the  practical  daily  life  of  the  community  in  which 
he  lives ;  and  the  influence  of  the  office  is  likely  to 
increase,  rather  than  diminish. 

Mr.  Delane  was  probably  the  first  individual  who 
was  ever  educated  with  a  distinct  view  to  his  becom- 
ing an  editor.  While  he  was  still  a  boy,  his  father, 
a  solicitor  by  profession,  received  an  appointment 
in  the  office  of  "  The  Times,"  which  led  to  young 


THREE  JOHN   WALTERS.  285 

Delane's  acquaintance  witli  the  proprietors  of  the 
journal.  It  seems  they  took  a  fancy  to  the  lad. 
They  perceived  that  he  had  the  editorial  cast  of 
character,  since,  in  addition  to  uncommon  industry 
and  intelligence,  he  had  a  certain  eagerness  for  in- 
formation, an  aptitude  for  acquiring  it,  and  a  dis- 
crimination in  weighing  it,  which  marks  the  jour- 
nalistic mind.  The  proprietors,  noting  these  traits, 
encouraged,  and,  I  believe,  assisted  him  to  a  uni- 
versity education,  in  the  expectation  that  he  would 
fit  himself  for  the  life  editorial. 

Having  begun  this  course  of  preparation  early, 
he  entered  the  office  of  "  The  Times  "  as  editorial 
assistant  soon  after  he  came  of  age,  and  acquitted 
himself  so  well  that,  in  1841,  when  he  was  not  yet 
twenty-five,  he  became  editor-in-chief.  He  was 
probably  the  youngest  man  who  ever  filled  such  a 
post  in  a  daily  paper  of  anything  like  equal  impor- 
tance. This  rapid  promotion  will  be  thought  the 
more  remarkable  when  it  is  mentioned  that  he 
never  wrote  an  editorial  in  his  life.  "  The  Times ': 
itself  says  of  him  :  — 

"  He  never  was  a  writer.  He  never  even  at- 
tempted to  write  anything,  except  reports  and  let- 
ters. These  he  had  to  do,  and  he  did  them  well. 
He  had  a  large  staff  of  writers,  and  it  was  not 
necessary  he  should  write,  except  to  communicate 
with  them." 

His  not  being  a  writer  was  one  of  his  strongest 
points.     Writing  is  a  career  by  itself.     The  com- 


286  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

position  of  one  editorial  of  the  first  class  is  a  very 
hard  day's  work,  and  one  that  leaves  to  the  writer 
but  a  small  residue  of  vital  force.  Writing  for  the 
public  is  the  most  arduous  and  exhausting  of  all 
industries,  and  cannot  properly  be  combined  with 
any  other.  Nor  can  a  man  average  more  than  two 
or  three  editorial  articles  a  week  such  as  "The 
Times  '  prints  every  day.  It  was  an  immense  ad- 
vantage to  the  paper  to  have  an  editor  who  was 
never  tempted  to  waste  any  of  his  strength  upon 
the  toil  of  composition.  "The  Times  "  prints  daily 
three  editorial  articles,  which  cost  the  paper  on  an 
average  fifty  dollars  each.  Mr.  Delane  himself 
mentioned  this  during  his  visit  to  this  country. 

There  was  one  quality  of  his  editorship  which  we 
ought  not  to  overlook.  It  was  totally  free  from 
personalities.  I  have  been  in  the  habit  for  a  long 
time  of  reading  "  The  Times  "  —  not  regularly  but 
very  frequently,  and  sometimes  every  day  for  a  con- 
siderable period ;  but  I  have  never  seen  an  indi- 
vidual disrespectfully  mentioned  in  the  paper.  An 
opinion  may  be  denounced ;  but  the  individual  hold- 
ing that  opinion  is  invariably  spoken  of  with  de- 
cency. "  The  Times  '  has  frequently  objected  to 
the  course  pursued  by  Mr.  Gladstone ;  but  the  man 
himself  is  treated  with  precisely  the  same  respect 
as  he  would  be  if  he  were  an  invited  guest  at  the 
editor's  table. 

"The  Times,"  being  a  human  institution,  has 
plenty  of  faults,  and  has  made  its  ample  share  of 


THREE  JOHN  WALTERS.  287 

mistakes;  but  it  owes  its  eminent  position  chiefly  to 
its  good  qualities,  its  business  ability,  its  patriot- 
ism, its  liberal  enterprise,  and  wise  treatment  of 
those  who  serve  it.  The  paper  is  still  chiefly 
owned  and  conducted  by  John  Walter,  the  grand- 
son of  the  founder. 


GEOEGE  HOPE. 


The  story  of  this  stalwart  and  skillful  Scotch 
farmer,  George  Hope,  enables  us  to  understand 
what  agitators  mean  by  the  term  "  landlordism." 
It  is  a  very  striking  case,  as  the  reader  will  admit. 

George  Hope,  born  in  1811,  was  the  son  of  a 
tenant  farmer  of  the  county  of  East  Lothian,  now 
represented  in  Parliament  by  Mr.  Gladstone.  The 
farm  on  which  he  was  born,  on  which  his  ancestors 
had  lived,  and  upon  which  he  spent  the  greater 
part  of  his  own  life,  was  called  Fenton  Barns. 
With  other  lands  adjacent,  it  made  a  farm  of  about 
eight  hundred  acres.  Two  thirds  of  it  were  of  a 
stiff,  retentive  clay,  extremely  hard  to  work,  and 
the  rest  was  little  better  than  sand,  of  a  yellow 
color  and  incapable  of  producing  grain. 

Two  or  three  generations  of  Hopes  had  spent  life 
and  toil  unspeakable  upon  this  unproductive  tract, 
without  making  the  least  profit  by  it ;  being  just 
able  to  pay  their  rent,  and  keep  their  heads  above 
water.  They  subsisted,  reared  families,  and  died, 
worn  out  with  hard  work,  leaving  to  their  sons,  be- 
sides an  honest  name,  only  the  same  inheritance  of 


GEORGE  HOPE.  289 

struggle  and  despair.  George  Hope's  mother  tried 
for  years  to  squeeze  out  of  her  butter  and  eggs  the 
price  of  a  table  large  enough  for  all  her  family  to 
sit  round  at  once,  but  died  without  obtaining  it. 

At  the  age  of  eighteen  years,  George  Hope  took 
hold  of  this  unpromising  farm,  his  parents  being  in 
declining  health,  nearly  exhausted  by  their  long 
struggle  with  it.  He  brought  to  his  task  an  intel- 
ligent and  cultivated  mind.  He  had  been  for  four 
years  in  a  lawyer's  office.  He  had  read  with  great 
admiration  the  writings  of  the  American  Channing ; 
and  he  now  used  his  intelligence  in  putting  new 
life  into  this  old  land. 

The  first  thing  was  to  acquire  more  capital ;  and 
the  only  way  of  accomplishing  this  was  to  do  much 
of  the  work  himself.  Mere  manual  labor,  however, 
would  not  have  sufficed ;  for  he  found  himself  baf- 
fled by  the  soil.  Part  of  the  land  being  wet,  cold 
clay,  and  part  yellow  sand,  he  improved  both  by 
mixing  them  together.  He  spread  sand  upon  his 
clay,  and  clay  upon  his  sand,  as  well  as  abundant 
manure,  and  he  established  a  kiln  for  converting 
some  of  the  clay  into  tiles,  with  which  he  drained 
his  own  farm,  besides  selling  large  quantities  of 
tiles  to  the  neighboring  farmers.  For  a  time,  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  burning  a  kiln  of  eleven  thou- 
sand  tiles  every  week,  and  he  was  thus  enabled  to 
expend  in  draining  his  own  farms  about  thirteen 
thousand  dollars,  without  going  in  debt  for  it. 

He  believed  in  what  is  called  "  high  farming," 

19 


290  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

and  spent  enormous  sums  in  fertilizing-  the  soil. 
For  a  mere  top-dressing  of  guano,  bones,  nitrate  of 
soda,  or  sulphate  of  ammonia,  he  spent  one  spring 
eight  thousand  dollars.  These  large  expenditures, 
directed  as  they  were  by  a  man  who  thoroughly  un- 
derstood his  business,  produced  wonderful  results. 
He  gained  a  large  fortune,  and  his  farm  became  so 
celebrated,  that  travelers  arrived  from  all  parts  of 
Europe,  and  even  from  the  United  States,  to  see  it. 
An  American  called  one  day  to  inspect  the  farm, 
when  Mr.  Hope  began,  as  usual,  to  express  his 
warm  admiration  for  Dr.  Channing.  The  visitor 
was  a  nephew  of  the  distinguished  preacher,  and  he 
was  exceedingly  surprised  to  find  his  uncle  so 
keenly  appreciated  in  that  remote  spot. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  which  of  his  two  kinds  of 
land  improved  the  most  under  his  vigorous  treat- 
ment. His  sandy  soil,  the  crop  of  which  in  for- 
mer years  was  sometimes  blown  out  of  the  ground, 
was  so  strengthened  by  its  dressing  of  clay  as  to 
produce  excellent  crops  of  wheat ;  and  his  clay 
fields  were  made  among  the  most  productive  in 
Scotland  by  his  system  of  combined  sanding,  drain- 
ing and  fertilizing. 

One  of  his  secrets  was  that  he  treated  his  labor- 
ers with  justice  and  consideration.  His  harvest- 
homes  were  famous  in  their  day.  When  he  found 
that  certain  old-fashioned  games  caused  some  of 
his  weak  teetotalers  to  fall  from  grace,  he  changed 
them  for  others ;  and,  instead  of  beer  and  toddy, 


GEORGE  HOPE.  291 

provided  abundance  of  tea,  coffee,  strawberries,  and 
other  dainties.  When  the  time  came  for  dancing, 
he  took  the  lead,  and  coidd  sometimes  boast  that 
he  had  not  missed  one  dance  the  whole  evening. 
In  addressing  a  public  meeting  of  farmers  and 
landlords  in  1861,  he  spoke  on  the  subject  of  im- 
proving the  cottages  of  farm  laborers.  These  were 
some  of  the  sentences  which  fell  from  his  lips :  — 

"  Treat  your  laborers  with  respect,  as  men ;  en- 
courage their  self-respect.  Never  enter  a  poor 
man's  house  any  more  than  a  rich  man's  unless  in- 
vited, and  then  go  not  to  find  fault,  but  as  a  friend. 
If  you  can  render  him  or  his  family  a  service,  by 
advice  or  otherwise,  let  it  be  more  delicately  done 
than  to  your  most  intimate  associate.  Remember 
how  hard  it  is  for  a  poor  man  to  respect  himself. 
He  hears  the  wealthy  styled  the  respectable,  and  the 
poor,  the  lower  classes ;  but  never  call  a  man  low. 
His  being  a  man  dwarfs,  and  renders  as  nothing, 
all  the  distinctions  of  an  earthly  estate." 

The  reader  sees  what  kind  of  person  this  George 
Hope  was.  He  was  as  nearly  a  perfect  character 
as  our  very  imperfect  race  can  ordinarily  exhibit. 
He  was  a  great  farmer,  a  true  captain  of  industry, 
an  honest,  intelligent,  just,  and  benevolent  man. 
He  was,  moreover,  a  good  citizen,  and  this  led  him 
to  take  an  interest  in  public  matters,  and  to  do  his 
utmost  in  aid  of  several  reasonable  reforms.  He 
was  what  is  called  a  Liberal  in  politics.  He  did 
what  he  could  to  promote  the  reform  bill  of  Lord 


292  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

John  Russell,  and  he  was  a  conspicuous  ally  of 
Cobden  and  Bright  in  their  efforts  to  break  down 
the  old  corn  laws.  He  remembered  that  there  were 
about  five  thousand  convictions  in  Great  Britain 
every  year  under  the  game  laws,  and  he  strove  in 
all  moderate  and  proper  ways  to  have  those  laws 
repealed. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  point.  A  certain  per- 
son named  R.  A.  Dundas  Christopher  Nisbet  Ham- 
ilton married  the  heiress  of  the  estate  to  which  the 
farm  of  George  Hope  belonged.  He  thus  acquired 
the  power,  when  a  tenant's  lease  expired,  to  refuse 
a  renewal.  This  person  was  a  Tory,  who  delighted 
in  the  slaughter  of  birds  and  beasts,  and  who 
thought  it  highly  impertinent  in  the  tenant  of  a 
farm  to  express  political  opinions  contrary  to  those 
of  his  landlord.  George  Hope,  toward  the  end  of 
his  long  lease,  offered  to  take  the  farm  again,  at  a 
higher  rent  than  he  had  ever  before  paid,  though 
it  was  himself  who  had  made  the  farm  more  valu- 
able. His  offer  was  coldly  declined,  and  he  was 
obliged,  after  expending  the  labor  and  skill  of  fifty- 
three  years  upon  that  land,  to  leave  it,  and  find  an- 
other home  for  his  old  ao:e. 

He  had  fortunately  made  money  enough  to  buy  a 
very  good  farm  for  himself,  and  he  had  often  said 
that  he  would  rather  farm  fifty  acres  of  his  own  than 
to  be  the  tenant  of  the  best  farm  in  Europe.  This 
"  eviction,"  as  it  was  called,  of  a  farmer  so  cele- 
brated  attracted   universal  comment,  and  excited 


GEORGE  HOPE.  293 

general  indignation.  He  left  his  farm  like  a  con- 
queror. Public  dinners  and  services  of  plate  were 
presented  to  him,  and  his  landlord  of  many  names 
acquired  a  notoriety  throughout  Europe  which  no 
doubt  he  enjoyed.  He  certainly  did  a  very  bold 
action,  and  one  which  casts  a  perfect  glare  of  light 
upon  the  nature  of  landlordism. 

George  Hope  died  in  1876,  universally  honored 
in  Scotland.  He  lies  buried  in  the  parish  of  his 
old  farm,  not  far  from  the  home  of  his  fathers. 
On  his  tombstone  is  inscribed :  — 

"To  the  memory  of  George  Hope,  for  many 
years  tenant  of  Fenton  Barns.  He  was  the  de- 
voted supporter  of  every  movement  which  tended 
to  the  advancement  of  civil  and  religious  liberty, 
and  to  the  moral  and  social  elevation  of  mankind. " 


\ 


SIR  HENRY  COLE. 


He  was  an  "  Old  Public  Functionary  "  in  the 
service  of  the  British  people. 

When  President  Buchanan  spoke  of  himself  as 
an  Old  Public  Functionary  he  was  a  good  deal 
laughed  at  by  some  o£  the  newspapers,  and  the 
phrase  has  since  been  frequently  used  in  an  op- 
probrious or  satirical  sense.  This  is  to  be  regretted, 
for  there  is  no  character  more  respectable,  and 
there  are  few  so  useful,  as  an  intelligent  and  pa- 
triotic man  of  long  standing  in  the  public  service. 
What  one  such  man  can  do  is  shown  by  the  ex- 
ample of  Sir  Henry  Cole,  who  died  a  few  months 
ago  in  London  after  half  a  century  of  public  life. 

The  son  of  an  officer  in  the  British  army,  he  was 
educated  at  that  famous  Blue-Coat  School  which  is 
interesting  to  Americans  because  Lamb  and  Cole- 
ridge attended  it.  At  the  age  of  fifteen  he  re- 
ceived an  appointment  as  clerk  in  the  office  of 
Public  Records.  In  due  time,  having  proved  his 
capacity  and  pecidiar  fitness,  be  was  promoted  to 
the  post  of  Assistant  Keeper,  which  gave  him  a 
respectable  position  and  some  leisure. 


SIR  HENRY  COLE.  295 

He  proved  to  be  in  an  eminent  sense  the  right 
man  in  the  right  place.  Besides  publishing,  from 
time  to  time,  curious  and  interesting  documents 
which  he  discovered  in  his  office,  he  called  atten- 
tion, by  a  series  of  vigorous  pamphlets,  to  the  cha- 
otic condition  in  which  the  public  records  of  Great 
Britain  were  kept.  Gradually  these  pamphlets 
made  an  impression,  and  they  led  at  length  to  a 
reform  in  the  office.  The  records  were  rearranged, 
catalogued,  rendered  safe,  and  made  accessible  to 
students.  This  has  already  led  to  important  cor- 
rections in  history,  and  to  a  great  increase  in  the 
sum  of  historical  knowledge. 

When  the  subject  of  cheap  postage  came  up  in 
1840,  the  government  offered  four  prizes  of  a  hun- 
dred pounds  each  for  suggestions  in  aid  of  Sir  Row- 
land Hill's  plan.  One  of  these  prizes  was  assigned 
to  Henry  Cole.  He  was  one  of  the  persons  who 
first  became  converts  to  the  idea  of  penny  postage, 
and  he  lent  the  aid  of  his  pen  and  influence  to  its 
adoption. 

At  length,  about  the  year  1845,  he  entered  upon 
the  course  of  proceedings  which  rendered  him  one 
of  the  most  influential  and  useful  persons  of  his 
time.  He  had  long  lamented  the  backward  condi- 
tion of  arts  of  design  in  England,  and  the  conse- 
quent ugliness  of  the  various  objects  in  the  sight 
and  use  of  which  human  beings  pass  their  lives. 
English  furniture,  wall  -  papers,  carpets,  curtains, 
cutlery,  garments,  upholstery,  ranged  from  the  tol- 


296  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

erable  to  the  hideous,  and  were  inferior  to  the 
manufactures  of  France  and  Germany.  He  or- 
ganized a  series  of  exhibitions  on  a  small  scale, 
somewhat  similar  to  those  of  the  American  In- 
stitute in  New  York,  which  has  held  a  competitive 
exhibition  of  natural  and  manufactured  objects 
every  autumn  for  the  last  fifty  years. 

His  exhibitions  attracted  attention,  and  they  led 
at  length  to  the  Crystal  Palace  Exhibition  of  1851. 
The  merit  of  that  scheme  must  be  shared  between 
Henry  Cole  and  Prince  Albert.  Cole  suggested 
that  his  small  exhibitions  should,  once  in  five  years, 
assume  a  national  character,  and  invite  contribu- 
tions from  all  parts  of  the  empire.  Yes,  said 
Prince  Albert,  and  let  us  also  invite  competition 
from  foreign  countries  on  equal  terms  with  native 
products. 

The  Exhibition  of  1851  was  admirably  managed, 
and  had  everv  kind  of  success.  It  benefited  En£- 
land  more  than  all  other  nations  put  together, 
because  it  revealed  to  her  people  their  inferiority 
in  many  branches  both  of  workmanship  and  de- 
sign. We  all  know  how  conceited  people  are  apt 
to  become  who  have  no  opportunity  to  compare 
themselves  with  superiors.  John  Bull,  never  over- 
modest,  surveyed  the  Exhibition  of  1851,  and  dis- 
covered, to  his  great  surprise,  that  he  was  not  the 
unapproachable  Bull  of  the  universe  which  he  had 
fondly  supposed.  He  saw  himself  beaten  in  some 
things  by  the  French,  in  some  by  the  Germans,  in 


SIR  HENRY  COLE.  297 

others  by  the  Italians,  and  in  a  few  (0  wonder !) 
by  the  Yankees. 

Happily  he  had  the  candor  to  admit  this  humil- 
iating fact  to  himself,  and  he  put  forth  earnest  and 
steadfast  exertions  to  bring  himself  up  to  the  level 
of  modern  times. 

Henry  Cole  was  the  life  and  soul  of  the  move- 
ment. It  was  he  who  called  attention  to  the  ob- 
stacles placed  in  the  way  of  improvement  by  the 
patent  laws,  and  some  of  those  obstacles,  through 
him,  were  speedily  removed. 

During  this  series  of  services  to  his  country,  he 
remained  in  the  office  of  Public  Records.  The 
government  now  invited  him  to  another  sphere 
of  labor.  They  asked  him  to  undertake  the  recon- 
struction of  the  schools  of  design,  and  they  gave 
him  an  office  which  placed  him  practically  at  the 
head  of  the  various  institutions  designed  to  pro- 
mote the  application  of  art  to  manufacture.  The 
chief  of  these  now  is  the  Museum  of  South  Ken- 
sington, which  is  to  many  Americans  the  most  in- 
teresting object  in  London.  The  creation  of  this 
wonderful  museum  was  due  more  to  him  than  to 
any  other  individual. 

It  came  to  pass  in  this  way :  After  the  close  of 
the  Crystal  Palace  in  1851,  Parliament  gave  five 
thousand  pounds  for  the  purchase  of  the  objects  ex- 
hibited which  were  thought  best  calculated  to  raise 
the  standard  of  taste  in  the  nation.  These  objects, 
chiefly  selected  by  Cole,  were  arranged  by  him  for 


298  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

exhibition  in  temporary  buildings  of  such  extreme 
and  repulsive  inconvenience  as  to  bring  opprobrium 
and  ridicule  upon  the  undertaking.  It  was  one  of 
the  most  difficult  things  in  the  world  to  excite  pub- 
lic interest  in  the  exhibition.  But  by  that  energy 
which  comes  of  strong  conviction  and  patriotic  feel- 
ing, and  of  the  opportunity  given  him  by  his  public 
employment,  Henry  Cole  wrung  from  a  reluctant 
Parliament  the  annual  grants  necessary  to  make 
South  Kensington  Museum  what  it  now  is. 

Magnificent  buildings,  filled  with  a  vast  collec- 
tion of  precious  and  interesting  objects,  greet  the 
visitor.  There  are  collections  of  armor,  relics, 
porcelain,  enamel,  fabrics,  paintings,  statues,  carv- 
ings in  wood  and  ivory,  machines,  models,  and 
every  conceivable  object  of  use  or  beauty.  Some 
of  the  most  celebrated  pictures  in  the  world  are 
there,  and  there  is  an  art  library  of  thirty  thou- 
sand volumes.  There  are  schools  for  instruction  in 
every  branch  of  art  and  science  which  can  be  sup- 
posed to  enter  into  the  products  of  industry.  The 
prizes  which  are  offered  for  excellence  in  design 
and  invention  have  attracted,  in  some  years,  as 
many  as  two  hundred  thousand  objects.  During 
three  days  of  every  week  admission  to  this  superb 
assemblage  of  exhibitions  is  free,  and  on  the  other 
three  days  sixpence  is  charged. 

The  influence  of  this  institution  upon  British 
manufactures  has  been  in  many  branches  revolu- 
tionary. As  the  London  "  Times  "  said  some  time 
ago :  — 


SIR  HENRY  COLE.  299 

"  There  is  hardly  a  household  in  the  country  that 
is  not  the  better  for  the  change  ;  there  is  certainly 
no  manufacture  in  which  design  has  any  place 
which  has  not  felt  its  influence." 

The  formation  of  this  Museum,  the  chief  work  of 
Sir  Henry  Cole's  useful  life,  was  far  from  exhaust- 
ing his  energies.  He  has  borne  a  leading  part  in 
all  the  industrial  exhibitions  held  in  London  dur- 
ing the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  and  served  as 
English  commissioner  at  the  Paris  exhibitions  of 
1855  and  1867. 

This  man  was  enabled  to  render  all  this  service 
to  his  country,  to  Europe,  and  to  us,  because  he 
was  not  obliged  to  waste  any  of  his  energies  in 
efforts  to  keep  his  place.  Administrations  might 
change,  and  Parliaments  might  dissolve ;  but  he 
was  a  fixture  as  long  as  he  did  his  duty.  "When 
his  duty  was  fairly  done,  and  he  had  completed  the 
fortieth  year  of  his  public  service,  he  retired  on  his 
full  salary,  and  he  was  granted  an  honorable  title ; 
for  a  title  is  honorable  when  it  is  won  by  good  ser- 
vice. Henceforth  he  was  called  Sir  Henry  Cole, 
K.  C.  B. 

To  the  end  of  his  life  he  continued  to  labor  in 
all  sorts  of  good  works  —  a  Training  School  for 
Music,  a  Training  School  for  Cookery,  guilds  for 
the  promotion  of  health,  and  many  others.  He 
died  in  April,  1882,  aged  seventy-four  years. 


CHARLES   SUMMERS. 


Strangers  visiting  Melbourne,  the  chief  city  of 
Australia,  will  not  be  allowed  to  overlook  four 
great  marble  statues  which  adorn  the  public  li- 
brary. They  are  the  gift  of  Mr.  W.  J.  Clark,  one. 
of  the  distinguished  public  men  of  that  growing 
empire.  These  statues  represent,  in  a  sitting  pos- 
ture, Queen  Victoria,  Prince  Albert,  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  and  the  Princess  of  Wales.  They  are 
larger  than  life,  and,  according  to  the  Australian 
press,  they  are  admirable  works  in  every  respect. 

They  were  executed  by  Charles  Summers,  a  sculp- 
tor long  resident  in  that  colony,  where  he  practiced 
his  art  with  great  success,  as  the  public  buildings 
and  private  houses  of  Melbourne  attest.  Many  of 
his  works  remain  in  the  colony,  and  he  may  be  said 
to  be  the  founder  of  his  form  of  art  in  that  part  of 
the  world.  The  history  of  this  man's  life  is  so  re- 
markable that  I  think  it  will  interest  the  reader. 

Sixty  years  ago,  Charles  Summers  was  a  little, 
hungry,  ragged  boy  in  English  Somersetshire,  who 
earned  four  cents  a  day  by  scaring  the  crows  from 
the  wheat  fields.     I  have  seen  myself  such  little  fel- 


CHARLES  SUMMERS.  301 

lows  engaged  in  this  work,  coming  on  duty  before 
four  in  the  morning,  and  remaining  till  eight  in  the 
evening,  frightening  away  the  birds  by  beating  a 
tin  pan  with  a  stick,  not  unf  requently  chasing  them 
and  throwing  stones  at  them.  He  was  the  son  of  a 
mason,  who  had  eight  children,  and  squandered 
half  his  time  and  money  in  the  tap-room.  Hence, 
this  boy,  from  the  age  of  eight  or  nine  years,  smart, 
intelligent,  and  ambitious,  was  constantly  at  work 
at  some  such  employment ;  and  often,  during  his 
father's  drunken  fits,  he  was  the  chief  support  of 
the  family. 

Besides  serving  as  scare-crow,  he  assisted  his  fa- 
ther in  his  mason's  work,  and  became  a  hod-carrier 
as  soon  as  he  was  able  to  carry  a  hod.  Sometimes 
he  accompanied  his  father  to  a  distant  place  in 
search  of  employment,  and  he  was  often  seen  on  the 
high-road,  in  charge  of  the  drunkard,  struggling 
to  get  him  home  before  he  had  spent  their  united 
earnings  in  drink.  In  these  deplorable  circum- 
stances, he  acquired  a  dexterity  and  patience  which 
were  most  extraordinary.  Before  he  was  twelve 
years  old  he  began  to  handle  the  chisel  and  the 
mallet,  and  his  work  in  squaring  and  facing  a  stone 
soon  surpassed  that  of  boys  much  older  than  him- 
self. He  was  observed  to  have  a  strong  propensity 
to  do  fancy  stone-work.  He  obtained,  as  a  boy, 
some  local  celebrity  for  his  carved  gate  posts,  and 
other  ornamental  objects  in  stone.  So  great  was 
his  skill  and  industry,  that,  by  the  time  he  was 


302  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

nineteen  years  of  age,  besides  having  maintained 
a  large  family  for  years,  he  had  saved  a  sum  equal 
to  a  hundred  dollars. 

Then  a  piece  of  good  fortune  happened  to  him. 
A  man  came  from  London  to  set  up  in  a  parish 
church  near  by  a  monumental  figure,  and  looked 
about  for  a  skillful  mason  to  assist  him.  Charles 
Summers  was  mentioned  as  the  best  hand  in  the 
neighborhood,  and  upon  him  the  choice  fell.  Thus 
he  was  introduced  to  the  world  of  art,  for  this  fig- 
ure had  been  executed  by  Henry  Weekes,  a  distin- 
guished London  sculptor.  The  hardships  of  his 
childhood  had  made  a  man  of  him  at  this  early  age, 
a  thoughtful  and  prudent  man.  Taking  with  him 
ten  of  his  twenty  pounds,  he  went  to  London  and 
applied  for  employment  in  the  studio  of  Henry 
Weekes.  This  artist  employed  several  men,  but  he 
had  no  vacant  place  except  the  humble  one  of  stone 
polisher,  which  required  little  skill.  He  accepted 
the  place  with  alacrity  and  delight,  at  a  salary  of 
hwe  dollars  a  week. 

He  was  now  in  his  element.  The  lowliest  em- 
ployments of  the  studio  were  pleasing  to  him.  He 
loved  to  polish  the  marble  ;  the  sight  of  the  numer- 
ous models  was  a  pleasure  to  him ;  even  wetting  the 
cloths  and  cleaning  the  model  tools  were  pleasant 
tasks.  His  cheerfulness  and  industry  soon  made 
him  a  favorite  ;  and  when  his  work  was  done,  he 
employed  his  leisure  in  gaining  skill  in  carving  and 
cutting  marble.     In  this  he  had  such  success,  that, 


CHARLES  SUMMERS.  303 

when  in  after  life  lie  became  hiniself  an  artist,  he 
would  sometimes  execute  his  idea' in  marble  with- 
out modeling  it  in  clay. 

When  he  had  been  in  this  studio  about  a  year, 
his  employer  was  commissioned  to  execute  two  co- 
lossal figures  in  bronze,  and  the  young  man  was 
obliged  to  spend  much  of  his  time  in  erecting 
the  foundry,  and  other  duties  which  he  felt  to  be 
foreign  to  Ins  art.  Impatient  at  this,  he  resigned 
his  place,  and  visited  his  home,  where  he  executed 
medallion  .portraits,  first  of  his  own  relations,  and 
afterwards  of  public  men,  such  as  the  Mayor  of  Bris- 
tol, and  the  member  of  Parliament  for  his  county. 
These  medallions  gave  him  some  reputation,  and  it 
was  a  favorite  branch  with  him  as  long  as  he  lived. 

Returning  to  London,  he  had  no  difficulty  in 
gaining  employment  at  good  wages  in  a  studio  of 
a  scidptor.  Soon  we  find  hint  competing  for  the 
prizes  offered  by  the  Royal  Academy  of  London 
to  young  sculptors  ;  the  chief  of  which  is  a  gold 
medal  given  every  two  years  for  the  best  group  in 
clay  of  an  historical  character.  A  silver  medal  is 
also  given  every  year  for  the  best  model  from  life. 

At  the  exhibition  of  1851,  when  he  was  twenty- 
four  years  of  age,  he  was  a  competitor  for  both 
these  prizes.  For  the  gold  medal  he  executed  a 
group  which  he  called  Mercy  interceding  for  the 
Vanquished.  For  the  silver  medal  he  offered  a 
bust  of  a  living  person.  He  had  the  singular 
good   fortune  of  winning    both,  and   he   received 


304  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

theni  in  public  from  the  bands  of  the  President  of 
the  Academy,  Sir  Charles  Eastlake.  Cheer  upon 
cheer  greeted  the  modest  student  when  he  rose  and 
went  forward  for  the  purpose.  He  was  a  young 
man  of  great  self-control.  Instead  of  joining  in 
the  usual  festivities  of  his  fellow-students  after  the 
award,  he  walked  quietly  to  his  lodgings,  where  bis 
father  and  brother  were  anxiously  waiting  to  bear 
the  result  of  the  competition.  He  threw  himself 
into  a  chair  without  a  word,  and  they  began  to  con- 
sole him  for  the  supposed  disappointment.  In  a 
few  minutes  they  sat  down  to  supper  ;  whereupon, 
with  a  knowing  smile,  he  took  his  medals  out  of 
his  pocket,  and  laid  one  of  them  on  each  side  of  his 
plate. 

From  this  time  he  had  no  difficulties  except 
those  inherent  in  the  nature  of  his  work,  and  in  his 
own  constitution.  His  early  struggle  with  life  had 
made  him  too  intense.  He  had  scarcely  known 
what  play  was,  and  he  did  not  know  bow  to  recre- 
ate himself.  He  had  Httle  taste  for  reading;  or  so- 
ciety.  He  loved  art  alone.  The  consequence  was 
that  be  worked  with  an  intensity  and  continuity 
that  no  human  constitution  could  long:  endure. 
Soon  after  winning  his  two  medals  bis  health  was 
so  completely  prostrated  that  he  made  a  voyage  to 
Australia  to  visit  a  brother  who  had  settled  there. 
The  voyage  restored  him,  and  he  soon  resumed  the 
practice  of  his  art  at  Melbourne.  The  people  were 
just  building  their  Houses  of  Parliament,  and  be 


CHARLES  SUMMERS.  305 

was  employed  to  execute  the  artistic  work  of  the 
interior.  He  lived  many  years  in  Australia,  and 
filled  the  colony  with  his  works  in  marble  and 
bronze. 

In  due  time  he  made  the  tour  of  Europe,  and 
lingered  nine  years  in  Home,  where  he  labored  with 
suicidal  assiduity.  He  dM  far  more  manual  labor 
himself  than  is  usual  with  artists  of  his  standing, 
and  yet,  during  his  residence  in  Rome  he  had 
twenty  men  in  his  service.  It  was  in  Borne,  in 
1876,  that  he  received  from  Melbourne  the  com- 
mission to  execute  in  marble  the  four  colossal  stat- 
ues mentioned  above.  These  works  he  completed 
in  something  less  than  eighteen  months,  besides  do- 
ing several  other  minor  works  previously  ordered. 

It  was  too  much,  and  Nature  resented  the  affront. 
After  he  had  packed  the  statues,  and  sent  them  on 
their  way  to  the  other  side  of  the  globe,  he  set  out 
for  Melbourne  himself,  intending  to  take  England 
by  the  way  for  medical  advice.  At  Paris  he  vis- 
ited the  Exhibition,  and  the  next  day,  at  his  hotel, 
he  fell  senseless  to  the  floor.  In  three  weeks  he 
was  dead,  at  the  age  of  fifty-one  years,  in  the  very 
midst  of  his  career. 

"  For  him,"  writes  one  of  his  friends,  "  life  con- 
sisted of  but  one  thing  —  art.  For  that  he  lived  ; 
and,  almost  in  the  midst  of  it,  died.  He  could 
not  have  conceived  existence  without  it.  Always 
and  under  every  circumstance,  he  was  thinking 
of  his  work,   and   gathering   from   whatever  sur- 

20 


306  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY 

rounded  him  such  information  as  he  thought  would 
prove  of  service.  In  omnibuses,  in  railway  car- 
riages, and  elsewhere,  he  found  opportunities  of 
study,  and  could  always  reproduce  a  likeness  from 
memory  of  the  individuals  so  observed." 

I  do  not  copy  these  words  as  commendation,  but 
as  warning.  Like  so  many  other  gifted  men  of  this 
age,  he  lived  too  fast  and  attempted  too  much.  He 
died  when  his  greatest  and  best  life  would  nat- 
urally have  been  just  beginning.  He  died  at  the 
beginning  of  the  period  when  the  capacity  for  high 
enjoyment  of  life  is  naturally  the  greatest.  He 
died  when  he  could  have  ceased  to  be  a  manufac- 
turer and  become  an  artist. 


TTILLIAM  B.   ASTOK. 

HOUSE-OWNER. 


In  estimating  the  character  and  merits  of  snch  a 
man  as  the  late  Mr.  Astor,  we  are  apt  to  leave  out 
of  view  the  enormous  harm  he  might  have  clone  if 
he  had  chosen  to  do  it. 

The  rich  fool  who  tosses  a  dollar  to  a  waiter  for 
some  trifling  service,  debases  the  waiter,  injures 
himself,  and  wrongs  the  public.  By  acting  in  that 
manner  in  all  the  transactions  of  life,  a  rich  man 
diffuses  around  him  an  atmosphere  of  corruption, 
and  raises  the  scale  of  expense  to  a  point  which 
is  oppressive  to  many,  ruinous  to  some,  and  incon- 
venient to  all.  The  late  Mr.  Astor,  with  an  income 
from  invested  property  of  nearly  two  millions  a 
year,  could  have  made  life  more  difficult  than  it 
was  to  the  whole  body  of  people  in  New  York  who 
are  able  to  live  in  a  liberal  manner.  He  refrained 
from  doing  so.  He  paid  for  everything  which  he 
consumed  the  market  price  —  no  more,  no  less  — 
and  he  made  his  purchases  with  prudence  and  fore- 
thought. As  he  lived  for  many  years  next  door  to 
the  Astor  Library,   the  frequenters  of  that  noble 


308  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

institution  had  an  opportunity  of  observing  that 
he  laid  in  his  year's  supply  of  coal  in  the  month 
of  June,  when  coal  is  cheapest. 

There  was  nothing  which  he  so  much  abhorred 
as  waste.  It  was  both  an  instinct  and  a  principle 
with  him  to  avoid  waste.  He  did  not  have  the  gas 
turned  down  low  in  a  temporarily  vacated  room 
because  he  would  save  two  cents  by  doing  so,  but 
because  he  justly  regarded  waste  as  wicked.  His 
example  in  this  particular,  in  a  city  so  given  to 
careless  and  ostentatious  profusion  as  New  York, 
was  most  useful.  We  needed  such  an  example. 
Nor  did  he  appear  to  carry  this  principle  to  an  ex- 
treme. He  was  very  far  from  being  miserly,  though 
keenly  intent  upon  accumulation. 

In  the  life  of  the  Old  World  there  is  nothing  so 
shocking  to  a  republicanized  mind  as  the  awful 
contrast  between  the  abodes  of  the  poor  and  the 
establishments  of  the  rich.  A  magnificent  park  of 
a  thousand  acres  of  the  richest  land  set  apart  and 
walled  in  for  the  exclusive  use  of  one  family,  while 
all  about  it  are  the  squalid  hovels  of  the  peasants 
to  whom  the  use  of  a  single  acre  to  a  family  would 
be  ease  and  comfort,  is  the  most  painful  and  shame- 
ful spectacle  upon  which  the  sun  looks  down  this 
day.  Nothing  can  make  it  right.  It  is  monstrous. 
It  curses  equally  the  few  who  ride  in  the  park  and 
the  many  who  look  over  its  walls  ;  for  the  great 
lord  who  can  submit  to  be  the  agent  of  such  injus- 
tice is  as  much  its  victim  as  the  degraded  laborer 


WILLIAM  B.  ASTOR.  309 

who  drowns  the  sense  of  his  misery  in  pot-house 
beer.  The  mere  fact  that  the  lord  can  look  upon 
such  a  scene  and  not  stir  to  mend  it,  is  proof  posi- 
tive of  a  profound  vulgarity. 

Nor  is  it  lords  alone  who  thus  waste  the  hard 
earned  wealth  of  the  toiling  sons  of  men.  I  read 
some  time  ago  of  a  wedding  in  Paris.  A  thriving 
banker  there,  who  is  styled  the  Baron  Alphonse  de 
Rothschild,  having  a  daughter  of  seventeen  to 
marry,  appears  to  have  set  seriously  to  work  to  find 
out  how  much  money  a  wedding  coidd  be  made  to 
cost.  In  pursuing  this  inquiry,  he  caused  the  wed- 
ding festivals  of  Louis  XIVs  court,  once  so  fa- 
mous, to  seem  poverty-stricken  and  threadbare. 
He  began  by  a  burst  of  ostentatious  charity.  He 
subscribed  money  for  the  relief  of  the  victims  of 
recent  inundations,  and  dowered  a  number  of  por- 
tionless girls  ;  expending  in  these  ways  a  quarter 
of  a  million  francs.  He  gave  his  daughter  a  por- 
tion of  five  millions  of  francs.  One  of  her  painted 
fans  cost  five  thousand  francs.  He  provided  such 
enormous  quantities  of  clothing  for  her  little  body, 
that  his  house,  if  it  had  not  been  exceedingly  large, 
would  not  have  conveniently  held  them.  For  the 
conveyance  of  the  wedding  party  from  the  house  to 
the  synagogue,  he  caused  twenty-five  magnificent 
carriages  to  be  made,  such  as  monarchs  use  when 
they  are  going  to  be  crowned,  and  these  vehicles 
were  drawn  by  horses  imported  from  England  for 
the  purpose.    The  bridal  veil  was  composed  of  inef- 


310  CAPTAINS   OF  INDUSTRY. 

fable  lace,  made  from  an  original  design  expressly 
for  this  bride. 

And  then  what  doings  in  the  synagogue !  A 
choir  of  one  hundred  and  ten  trained  voices,  led 
by  the  best  conductor  in  Europe  —  the  first  tenor 
of  this  generation  engaged,  who  sang  the  prayer 
from  "  Moses  in  Egypt"  —  a  crowd  of  rabbis,  and 
assistant-rabbis,  with  the  grand  rabbi  of  Paris  at 
their  head.  To  complete  the  histrionic  perform- 
ance, eight  young  girls,  each  bearing  a  beautiful 
gold-embroidered  bag,  and  attended  by  a  young 
gentleman,  "  took  up  a  collection '  for  the  poor, 
which  yielded  seven  thousand  francs. 

Mr.  Astor  could,  if  he  had  chosen,  have  thrown 
his  millions  about  in  this  style.  He  was  one  of  a 
score  or  two  of  men  in  North  America  who  could 
have  maintained  establishments  in  town  and  coun- 
try on  the  dastardly  scale  so  common  among  rich 
people  in  Europe.  He,  too,  could  have  had  his 
park,  his  half  a  dozen  mansions,  his  thirty  carriages, 
his  hundred  horses  and  his  yacht  as  big  as  a  man- 
of-war.  That  he  was  above  such  atrocious  vul- 
garity as  this,  was  much  to  his  credit  and  more  to 
our  advantage.  What  he  could  have  done  safely, 
other  men  would  have  attempted  to  whom  the  at- 
tempt would  have  been  destruction.  Some  dis- 
credit also  would  have  been  cast  upon  those  who 
live  in  moderate  and  modest  ways. 

Every  quarter  day  Mr.  Astor  had  nearly  half  a 
million  dollars  to  invest  in  the  industries   of  the 


WILLIAM  B.  ASTOR.  311 

country.  To  invest  his  surplus  income  in  the  best 
and  safest  manner  was  the  study  of  his  life.  His 
business  was  to  take  care  of  and  increase  his  es- 
tate ;  and  that  being  his  business,  he  was  right  in 
giving  the  necessary  attention  to  it.  "  William 
will  never  make  money,"  his  father  used  to  say; 
"  but  he  will  take  good  care  of  what  he  has."  And 
so  it  proved.  The  consequence  was,  that  all  his 
life  he  invested  money  in  the  way  that  was  at  once 
best  for  himself  and  best  for  the  country.  No  use- 
less or  premature  scheme  had  had  any  encourage- 
ment from  him.  He  invariably,  and  by  a  certainty 
of  judgment  that  resembled  an  instinct,  "put  his 
money  where  it  woidd  do  most  good."  Political 
economists  demonstrate  that  an  investment  which 
is  the  best  for  the  investor  must  of  necessity  be  the 
best  for  the  public.  Here,  again,  we  were  lucky. 
When  we  wanted  houses  more  than  we  wanted 
coal,  he  built  houses  for  us  ;  and  when  we  wanted 
coal  more  than  we  wanted  houses,  he  set  his  money 
to  digging  coal ;  charging  nothing  for  his  trouble 
but  the  mere  cost  of  his  subsistence. 

One  fault  he  had  as  a  public  servant  —  for  we 
may  fairly  regard  in  that  light  a  man  who  wields 
so  large  a  portion  of  our  common  estate.  He  was 
one  of  the  most  timid  of  men.  He  was  even  tim- 
orous. His  timidity  was  constitutional  and  phys- 
ical. He  would  take  a  great  deal  of  trouble  to 
avoid  crossing  a  temporary  bridge  or  scaffolding, 
though  assured  by  an  engineer  that  it  was  strong 


312  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY.    . 

enough  to  bear  ten  elephants.  Nor  can  it  be  said 
that  he  was  morally  brave.  Year  after  year  he  saw 
a  gang  of  thieves  in  the  City  Hall  stealing  his  rev- 
enues under  the  name  of  taxes  and  assessments,  but 
he  never  led  an  assault  upon  them  nor  gave  the  aid 
he  ought  to  those  who  did.  Unless  he  is  grossly 
belied,  he  preferred  to  compromise  than  fight,  and 
did  not  always  disdain  to  court  the  ruffians  who 
plundered  him. 

This  was  a  grave  fault.  He  who  had  the  most 
immediate  and  the  most  obvious  interest  in  expos- 
ing and  resisting  the  scoundrels,  ought  to  have 
taken  the  lead  in  putting  them  down.  This  he 
could  not  do.  Nature  had  denied  him  the  qualities 
required  for  such  a  contest.  He  had  his  enormous 
estate,  and  he  had  mind  enough  to  take  care  of  it 
in  ordinary  ways  ;  but  he  had  nothing  more.  We 
must  therefore  praise  him  less  for  the  good  he  did 
in  his  life,  than  for  the  evil  which  he  refrained  from 
doing. 


PETER   COOPER. 


PETER  COOPER. 


On  an  April  morning  in  1883  I  was  seated  at 
breakfast  in  a  room  which  commanded  a  view  of 
the  tall  flag-staff  in  Gramercy  Park  in  the  city  of 
New  York.  I  noticed  some  men  unfolding  the  flag 
and  raising  it  on  the  mast.  The  flag  stojDped  mid- 
way and  dropped  motionless  in  the  still  spring 
morning.  The  newspapers  which  were  scattered 
about  the  room  made  no  mention  of  the  death  of 
any  person  of  note  and  yet  this  sign  of  mourning 
needed  no  explanation.  For  half  a  life-time  Peter 
Cooper  had  lived  in  a  great,  square,  handsome 
house  just  round  the  corner,  and  the  condition  of 
the  aged  philanthropist  had  been  reported  about 
the  neighborhood  from  hour  to  hour  during  the 
previous  days  ;  so  that  almost  every  one  who  saw 
the  flag  uttered  words  similar  to  those  which  I 
heard  at  the  moment :  — 

"  He  is  gone,  then  !  The  good  old  man  is  gone. 
We  shall  never  see  his  snowy  locks  again,  nor  his 
placid  countenance,  nor  his  old  horse  and  gig  jog- 
ging by.     Peter  Cooper  is  dead  !  " 

He  had  breathed  his  last  about  three  o'clock  that 


314  CAPTAINS   OF  INDUSTRY. 

morning,  after  the  newspapers  had  gone  to  press ; 
but  the  tidings  spread  with  strange  rapidity.  When 
I  went  out  of  the  house  two  hours  later,  the  whole 
city  seemed  hung  with  flags  at  half-mast ;  for  there 
is  probably  no  city  in  the  world  which  has  so  much 
patriotic  bunting  at  command  as  New  York.  Pas- 
sengers going  north  and  west  observed  the  same  to- 
kens of  regard  all  along  the  lines  of  railroad.  By 
mid-day  the  great  State  of  New  York,  from  the  Nar- 
rows to  the  lakes,  and  from  the  lakes  to  the  Penn- 
sylvania line,  exhibited  everywhere  the  same  mark 
of  respect  for  the  character  of  the  departed.  A 
tribute  so  sincere,  so  spontaneous  and  so  universal, 
has  seldom  been  paid  to  a  private  individual. 

It  was  richly  deserved.  Peter  Cooper  was  a 
man  quite  out  of  the  common  order  even  of  good 
men.  His  munificent  gift  to  the  public,  so  strik- 
ingly and  widely  useful,  has  somewhat  veiled  from 
public  view  his  eminent  executive  qualities,  which 
were  only  less  exceptional  than  his  moral. 

I  once  had  the  pleasure  of  hearing  the  story  of 
his  life  related  with  some  minuteness  by  a  member 
of  his  own  family,  now  honorably  conspicuous  in 
public  life,  and  I  will  briefly  repeat  it  here.  More 
than  ninety  years  ago,  when  John  Jacob  Astor 
kept  a  fur  store  in  Water  Street,  and  used  to  go 
round  himself  buying  his  furs  of  the  Hudson  River 
boatmen  and  the  western  Indians,  he  had  a  neigh- 
bor who  bought  beaver  skins  of  him,  and  made 
them  into  hats  in  a   little  shop   near   by,  in   the 


PETER   COOPER.  315 

same  street.  This  hat-maker,  despite  his  peaceful 
occupation,  was  called  by  his  friends  Captain 
Cooper,  for  he  had  been  a  good  soldier  of  the 
Revolution,  and  had  retired,  after  honorable  ser- 
vice to  the  very  end  of  the  war,  with  a  captain's 
rank.  Captain  Cooper  was  a  better  soldier  than 
man  of  business.  Indeed,  New  York  was  then  a 
town  of  but  twenty-seven  thousand  inhabitants,  and 
the  field  for  business  was  restricted.  He  was  an 
amiable,  not  very  energetic  man  ;  but  he  had  had 
the  good  fortune  to  marry  a  woman  who  supplied 
all  his  deficiencies.  The  daughter  of  one  of  the 
colonial  mayors  of  New  York,  she  was  born  on  the 
very  spot  which  is  now  the  site  of  St.  Paul's  Church 
at  the  corner  of  Broadway  and  Fulton  Street,  and 
her  memory  ran  back  to  the  time  when  the  stock- 
ade was  still  standing  which  had  been  erected  in 
the  early  day  as  a  defense  against  the  Indians. 

There  is  a  vivid  tradition  in  the  surviving  fam- 
ily of  Peter  Cooper  of  the  admirable  traits  of  his 
mother.  She  was  educated  among  the  Moravians 
in  Pennsylvania,  who  have  had  particular  success 
in  forming  and  developing  the  female  character. 
She  was  a  woman  in  whom  were  blended  the  diverse 
qualities  of  her  eminent  son,  energy  and  tender- 
ness, mental  force  and  moral  elevation.  She  was 
the  mother  of  two  daughters  and  seven  sons,  her 
fifth  child  being  Peter,  who  was  born  in  1791. 

To  the  end  of  his  life,  Peter  Cooper  had  a  clear 
recollection  of  many  interesting  events  which  oc- 


316  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

curred  before  the  beginning  of  the  present  cen- 
tury. 

"  I  remember,"  he  used  to  say,  "  that  I  was 
abont  nine  years  old  at  the  time  when  Washington 
was  buried.  That  is,  he  was  buried  at  Mount 
Vernon ;  but  we  had  a  funeral  service  in  old  St. 
Paul's.  I  stood  in  front  of  the  church,  and  I  recall 
the  event  well,  on  account  of  his  old  white  horse 
and  its  trappings." 

A  poor  hatter,  with  a  family  of  nine  children, 
must  needs  turn  his  children  to  account,  and  the 
consequence  was  that  Peter  Cooper  enjoyed  an 
education  which  gave  him  at  least  great  manual 
dexterity.  He  learned  how  to  use  both  his  hands 
and  a  portion  of  his  brain.  He  learned  how  to  do 
things.  His  earliest  recollection  was  his  working 
for  his  father  in  pulling,  picking,  and  cleaning  the 
wool  used  in  making  hat-bodies,  and  he  was  kept 
at  this  work  during  his  whole  boyhood,  except  that 
one  year  he  went  to  school  half  of  every  day,  learn- 
ing a  little  arithmetic,  as  well  as  reading  and  writ- 
ing. By  the  time  he  was  fifteen  years  old  he  had 
learned  to  make  a  good  beaver  hat  throughout,  and 
a  good  beaver  hat  of  that  period  was  an  elaborate 
and  imposing  structure. 

Then  his  father  abandoned  his  hat  shop  and  re- 
moved to  Peekskill  on  the  Hudson,  where  he  set 
up  a  brewery,  and  where  Peter  learned  the  whole 
art  and  mystery  of  making  beer.  He  was  quick 
to  learn  every  kind  of  work,  and  even  as  a  boy  he 


PETER   COOPER.  317 

was  apt  to  suggest  improvements  in  tools  and  meth- 
ods. At  the  age  of  seventeen,  he  was  still  work- 
ing in  the  brewery,  a  poor  man's  son,  and  engaged 
in  an  employment  which  for  many  and  good  rea- 
sons he  disliked.  Brewing  beer  is  a  repulsive  oc- 
cupation. 

Then,  with  his  father's  consent,  he  came  alone  to 
New  York,  intending  to  apprentice  himself  to  any 
trade  that  should  take  his  fancy.  He  visited  shop 
after  shop,  and  at  last  applied  for  employment  at 
a  carriage  factory  near  the  corner  of  Broadway  and 
Chambers  Street.  He  remembered,  to  his  nine- 
tieth year,  the  substance  of  the  conversation  which 
passed  between  him  and  one  of  the  partners  in  this 
business. 

"  Have  you  room  for  an  apprentice  ? '  asked 
Peter. 

"  Do  you  know  anything  about  the  business  ?  ' 
was  the  rejoinder. 

The  lad  was  obliged  to  answer  that  he  did  not. 

"  Have  you  been  brought  up  to  work  ?': 

He  replied  by  giving  a  brief  history  of  his  pre- 
vious life. 

"Is  your  father  willing  that  you  should  learn 
this  trade  ?  " 

"  He  has  given  me  my  choice  of  trades." 

"  If  I  take  you,  will  you  stay  with  me  and  work 
out  your  time  ? ' 

He  gave  his  word  that  he  would,  and  a  bargain 
was   made  —  twenty-five    dollars   a  year,  and   his 


318  CAPTAIXS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

board.     He  kept  his  promise  and  served  out   his 
time.     To  use  his  own  language  :  — 

••  Iii  my  seventeenth  year  I  entered  as  apprentice 
to  the  coach-making  business,  in  which  I  remained 
four  years,  till  I  became  l  of  age.'  I  made  for  my 
employer  a  machine  for  mortising  the  hubs  of  car- 
riages, which  proved  very  profitable  to  him,  and 
was,  perhaps,  the  first  of  its  kind  used  in  this  coun- 
try. AYhen  I  was  twenty-one  years  old  my  em- 
ployer offered  to  build  me  a  shop  and  set  me  up 
in  business,  but  as  I  always  had  a  horror  of  being1 
burdened  with  debt,  and  having  no  capital  of  my 
own,  I  declined  his  kind  offer.  He  himself  be- 
came a  bankrupt.  I  have  made  it  a  rule  to  pay 
everything  as  I  go.  If,  in  the  course  of  business, 
anything  is  due  from  me  to  any  one.  and  the  money 
is  not  called  for.  I  make  it  mv  business  on  the  last 
Saturday  before  Christmas  to  take  it  to  his  busi- 
ness place." 

It  was  during  this  period  of  his  life,  from  seven- 
teen to  twenty-one,  that  he  felt  most  painfully  the 
defects  of  his  education.     He  had  acquired  manual 
skill,  but  he  felt  acutely  that  this  quality  alone  was 
rather  that  of  a  beaver  than  of  a  man.     He  had  an 
a"iquisitive,  energetic   understanding,  which    could 
-1  be  content  without  knowledge  far  beyond  that 
move  e  most  advanced  beaver.     Hung-erino'  for  such 
up  a  lajge^  ne   bought  some  books :  but   in  those 
art  and  ere  were  few  hooks  of  an  elementary  kind 
to  learn  tt0  ^e  neec[s  0f  a  lonely,  uninstructed  boy. 


PETER   COOPER.  319 

His  books  puzzled  more  than  they  enlightened  him ; 
and  so,  when  his  work  was  done,  he  looked  about 
the  little  bustling  city  to  see  if  there  was  not  some 
kind  of  evening  school  in  which  he  could  get 
the  kind  of  help  he  needed.  There  was  nothing  of 
the  kind,  either  in  New  York  or  in  any  city  then. 
Nor  were  there  free  schools  of  any  kind.  He  found 
a  teacher,  however,  who,  for  a  small  compensation, 
gave  him  instruction  in  the  evening  in  arithmetic 
and  other  branches.  It  was  at  this  time  that  he 
formed  the  resolution  which  he  carried  out  forty-five 
years  later.     He  said  to  himself :  — 

"  If  ever  I  prosper  in  business  so  as  to  acquire 
more  property  than  I  need,  I  will  try  to  found  an 
institution  in  the  city  of  New  York,  wherein  appren- 
tice boys  and  young  mechanics  shall  have  a  chance 
to  get  knowledge  in  the  evening." 

This  purpose  was  not  the  dream  of  a  sentimental 
youth.  It  was  a  clear  and  positive  intention,  which 
he  kept  steadily  in  view  through  all  vicissitudes 
until  he  was  able  to  enter  upon  its  accomplishment. 

He  was  twenty-one  years  of  age  when  the  war  of 
1812  began,  which  closed  for  the  time  every  car- 
riage manufactory  in  the  country.  He  was  there- 
fore fortunate  in  not  having  accepted  the  proposi- 
tion of  his  employer.  During  the  first  months  of 
the  war  business  was  dead ;  but  as  the  supply  of 
foreign  merchandise  gave  out  an  impulse  was  given 
to  home  manufacture,  especially  of  the  fabrics  used 
in  clothing.     There  was  a  sudden  demand  for  cloth- 


820  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

making  machinery  of  all  kinds,  and  now  Peter 
Cooper  put  to  good  use  his  inventive  faculty.  He 
contrived  a  machine  for  cutting  away  the  nap  on 
the  surface  of  cloth,  which  answered  so  well  that  he 
soon  had  a  bustling  shop  for  making  the  machines, 
which  he  sold  faster  than  he  could  produce.  He 
found  himself  all  at  once  in  an  excellent  business, 
and  in  December,  1813,  he  married  Miss  Sarah 
Bedel  of  Hempstead,  Long  Island ;  he  being  then 
twenty-two  and  she  twenty-one. 

There  never  was  a  happier  marriage  than  this. 
To  old  age,  he  never  sat  near  her  without  holding 
her  hand  in  his.  He  never  spoke  to  her  nor  of 
her  without  some  tender  epithet.  He  attributed 
the  great  happiness  of  his  life  and  most  of  his  suc- 
cess to  her  admirable  qualities.  He  used  to  say  that 
she  was  "  the  day-star,  the  solace,  and  the  inspira- 
tion '  of  his  life.  She  seconded  every  good  im- 
pulse of  his  benevolence,  and  made  the  fulfillment 
of  his  great  scheme  possible  by  her  wise  and  reso- 
lute economy.  They  began  their  married  life  on  a 
scale  of  extreme  frugality,  both  laboring  together 
for  the  common  good  of  the  family. 

"  In  early  life,"  he  used  to  say,  "  when  I  was 
first  married,  I  found  it  necessary  to  rock  the  cra- 
dle, while  my  wife  prepared  our  frugal  meals.  This 
was  not  always  convenient  in  my  busy  life,  and  I 
conceived  the  idea  of  making  a  cradle  that  would 
be  made  to  rock  by  mechanism.  I  did  so,  and 
enlarging  upon  my  first  idea,  I  arranged  the  mech- 


PETER   COOPER  321 

anism  for  keeping  off  the  flies,  and  playing  a  mu- 
sic-box for  the  amusement  of  the  baby !  This 
cradle  was  bought  of  me  afterwards  by  a  delighted 
peddler,  who  gave  me  his  '  whole  stock  in  trade  ' 
for  the  exchange  and  the  privilege  of  selling  the 
patent  in  the  State  of  Connecticut." 

This  device  in  various  forms  and  modifications 
is  still  familiar  in  our  households.  They  had  six 
children,  of  whom  two  survive,  Mr.  Edward  Coo- 
per, recently  mayor  of  New  York,  and  Sarah,  wife 
of  Hon.  Abram  S.  Hewett,  member  of  Congress 
from  the  city  of  New  York.  For  nearly  sixty- 
five  years  this  couple  lived  together  in  happy  mar- 


riage. 


In  1815  the  peace  with  Great  Britain,  which 
gave  such  ecstasies  of  joy  to  the  whole  country,  ru- 
ined Peter  Cooper's  business  ;  as  it  was  no  longer 
possible  to  make  cloth  in  the  United  States  with 
profit.  With  three  trades  at  his  finger  ends,  he 
now  tried  a  fourth,  cabinet-making,  in  which  he 
did  not  succeed.  He  moved  out  of  town,  and 
bought  the  stock  of  a  grocer,  whose  store  stood  on 
the  very  site  of  the  present  Cooper  Institute,  at 
that  time  surrounded  by  fields  and  vacant  lots. 
But  even  then  he  thought  that,  by  the  time  he  was 
ready  to  begin  his  evening  school,  that  angle  of 
land  would  probably  be  an  excellent  central  spot 
on  which  to  build  it. 

He  did  very  well  with  his  grocery  store  ;  but  it 
never  would  have  enabled  him  to  endow  his  Insti- 

21 


322  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

tute.  One  day  when  he  had  kept  his  grocery  about 
a  year,  and  used  his  new  cradle  at  intervals  in  the 
rooms  above,  an  old  friend  of  his  accosted  him,  as 
he  stood  at  the  door  of  the  grocery. 

"  I  have  been  building,"  said  his  visitor,  "  a  glue 
factory  for  my  son  ;  but  I  don't  think  that  either 
he  or  I  can  make  it  pay.  But  you  are  the  very 
man  to  do  it." 

"  I  '11  go  and  see  it,"  said  Peter  Cooper. 

He  got  into  his  friend's  wagon  and  they  drove 
to  the  spot,  which  was  near  the  corner  of  Madison 
Avenue  and  Twenty-ninth  Street,  almost  on  the 
very  spot  now  occupied  by  an  edifice  of  much  note 
called  "The  Little  Church  Round  the  Corner." 
He  liked  the  look  of  the  new  factory,  and  he  saw 
no  reason  why  the  people  of  New  York  should  send 
all  the  way  to  Russia  for  good  glue.  His  friend 
asked  two  thousand  dollars  for  the  establishment 
as  it  stood,  and  Peter  Cooper  chanced  to  have  that 
sum  of  money,  and  no  more.  He  bought  the  fac- 
tory on  the  spot,  sold  his  grocery  soon,  and  plunged 
into  the  manufacture  of  glue,  of  which  he  knew 
nothing  except  that  Russian  glue  was  very  good 
and  American  very  bad. 

Now  he  studied  the  composition  of  glue,  and 
gradually  learned  the  secret  of  making  the  best 
possible  article  which  brought  the  highest  price  in 
the  market.  He  worked  for  twenty  years  without 
a  book-keeper,  clerk,  salesman,  or  agent.  He  rose 
with  the  dawn.     When   his  men   came  at   seven 


PETER   COOPER.  823 

o'clock  to  work,  they  found  the  factory  fires  lighted, 
and  it  was  the  master  who  had  lighted  them.  He 
watched  closely  and  always  the  boiling  of  his  glue, 
and  at  midday,  when  the  critical  operation  was 
over,  he  drove  into  the  city  and  went  the  round  of 
his  customers,  selling  them  glue  and  isinglass,  and 
passed  the  evening  in  posting  his  books  and  read- 
ing to  his  family. 

He  developed  the  glue  business  until  it  yielded 
him  a  profit  of  thirty  thousand  dollars  a  year.  He 
soon  began  to  feel  himself  a  capitalist,  and  to 
count  the  years  until  he  would  be  able  to  begin  the 
erection  of  the  institution  he  had  in  his  mind.  But 
men  who  are  known  to  have  capital  are  continually 
solicited  to  embark  in  enterprises,  and  he  was  un- 
der a  strong  temptation  to  yield  to  such  solicita- 
tions, for  the  scheme  which  he  had  projected  would 
involve  a  larger  expenditure  than  could  be  ordi- 
narily made  from  one  business  in  one  lifetime.  He 
used  to  tell  the  story  of  his  getting  into  the  busi- 
ness of  making  iron,  which  was  finally  a  source  of 
great  profit  to  him. 

"  In  1828,"  he  would  say,  "  I  bought  three 
thousand  acres  of  land  within  the  city  limits  of 
Baltimore  for  $105,000.  When  I  first  purchased 
the  property  it  was  in  the  midst  of  a  great  excite- 
ment created  by  a  promise  of  the  rapid  completion 
of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad,  which  had 
been  commenced  by  a  subscription  of  five  dollars 
per  share.     In  the  course  of  the  first  year's  opera- 


324  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

tions  they  had  spent  more  than  the  five  dollars  per 
share.  But  the  road  had  to  make  so  many  short 
turns  in  going  around  points  of  rocks  that  they 
found  they  could  not  complete  the  road  without  a 
much  larger  sum  than  they  had  supposed  would  be 
necessary  ;  while  the  many  short  turns  in  the  road 
seemed  to  render  it  entirely  useless  for  locomotive 
purposes.  The  principal  stockholders  had  become 
so  discouraged  that  they  said  they  would  not  pay 
any  more,  and  would  lose  all  they  had  already  paid 
in.  After  conversing  with  them,  I  told  them  that 
if  they  would  hold  on  a  little  while  I  would  put  a 
small  locomotive  on  the  road,  which  I  thought 
would  demonstrate  the  practicability  of  using  steam- 
engines  on  the  road,  even  with  all  the  short  turns 
in  it.  I  got  up  a  small  engine  for  that  purpose, 
and  put  it  upon  the  road,  and  invited  the  stock- 
holders to  witness  the  experiment.  After  a  good 
deal  of  trouble  and  difficulty  in  accomplishing  the 
work,  the  stockholders  came,  and  thirty-six  men 
were  taken  into  a  car,  and,  with  six  men  on  the  lo- 
comotive, which  carried  its  own  fuel  and  water,  and 
having  to  go  up  hill  eighteen  feet  to  a  mile,  and 
turn  all  the  short  turns  around  the  points  of  rocks, 
we  succeeded  in  making  the  thirteen  miles,  on  the 
first  passage  out,  in  one  hour  and  twelve  minutes, 
and  we  returned  from  Ellicott's  Mills  to  Baltimore 
in  fifty-seven  minutes.  This  locomotive  was  built 
to  demonstrate  that  cars  could  be  drawn  around 
short  curves,  beyond  anything  believed  at  that  time 


PETER   COOPER.  325 

to  be  possible.  The  success  of  this  locomotive  also 
answered  the  question  of  the  possibility  of  building 
railroads  in  a  country  scarce  of  capital,  and  with 
immense  stretches  of  very  rough  country  to  pass,  in 
order  to  connect  commercial  centres,  without  the 
deep  cuts,  the  tunneling  and  leveling  which  short 
curves  might  avoid.  My  contrivance  saved  this 
road  from  bankruptcy." 

He  still  had  his  tract  of  Baltimore  land  upon  his 
hands,  which  the  check  to  the  prosperity  of  the  city 
rendered  for  the  time  almost  valueless  ;  so  he  de- 
termined to  build  ironworks  upon  it,  and  a  rolling- 
mill.  •  In  his  zeal  to  acquire  knowledge  at  first 
hand,  he  had  a  narrow  escape  from  destruction  in 
Baltimore. 

"  In  my  efforts  to  make  iron,"  he  said,  "  I  had  to 
begin  by  burning  the  wood  growing  upon  the  spot 
into  charcoal,  and  in  order  to  do  that,  I  erected 
large  kilns,  twenty-five  feet  in  diameter,  twelve  feet 
high,  circular  in  form,  hooped  around  with  iron  at 
the  top,  arched  over  so  as  to  make  a  tight  place  in 
which  to  put  the  wood,  with  single  bricks  left  out  in 
different  places  in  order  to  smother  the  fire  out 
when  the  wood  was  sufficiently  burned.  After  hav- 
ing burned  the  coal  in  one  of  these  kilns  perfectly, 
and  believing  the  fire  entirely  smothered  out,  we 
attempted  to  take  the  coal  out  of  the  kiln  ;  but 
when  we  had  got  it  about  half-way  out,  the  coal 
itself  took  fire,  and  the  men,  after  carrying  water 
some  time  to  extinguish   it,  gave  up  in  despair. 


326  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

I  then  went  myself  to  the  door  of  the  kiln  to  see 
if  anything  more  could  be  done,  and  just  as  I 
entered  the  door  the  gas  itself  took  fire  and  en- 
veloped me  in  a  sheet  of  flame.  I  had  to  run  some 
ten  feet  to  get  out,  and  in  doing  so  my  eyebrows  and 
whiskers  were  burned,  and  my  fur  hat  was  scorched 
down  to  the  body  of  the  fur.  How  I  escaped  I  know 
not.  I  seemed  to  be  literally  blown  out  by  the  ex- 
plosion, and  I  narrowly  escaped  with  my  life." 

The  ironworks  were  finally  removed  to  Trenton, 
New  Jersey,  where  to  this  day,  under  the  vigorous 
management  of  Mr.  Hewett  and  his  partners,  they 
are  very  successful. 

During  these  active  years  Peter  Cooper  never 
for  a  moment  lost  sight  of  the  great  object  of  his 
life.  We  have  a  new  proof  of  this,  if  proof  were 
needed,  in  the  Autobiography  recently  published 
of  the  eloquent  Orville  Dewey,  pastor  of  the  Uni- 
tarian Church  of  the  Messiah,  which  Peter  Cooper 
attended  for  many  years. 

"  There  were  two  men,"  says  Dr.  Dewey,  "  who 
came  to  our  church  whose  coming  seemed  to  be  by 
chance,  but  was  of  great  interest  to  me,  for  I  val- 
ued them  greatly.  They  were  Peter  Cooper  and 
Joseph  Curtis.1  Neither  of  them  then  belonged 
to  any  religious  society,  or  regularly  attended 
any  church.  They  happened  to  be  walking  down 
Broadway  one   Sunday  evening,   as  the  congrega- 

1  A  noted  philanthropist  of  that  day,  devoted  to  the  im- 
provement of  the  public  schools  of  the  city. 


PETER   COOPER.  327 

tion  were  entering  Stuyvesant  Hall,  where  we  then 
temporarily  worshiped,  and  they  said  :  — 

" '  Let  ns  £0  in  here  and  see  what  this  is.' 

"  When  they  came  out,  as  they  both  told  me, 
they  said  to  one  another :  — 

"  i  This  is  the  place  for  us  I ' 

"  And  they  immediately  connected  themselves 
with  the  congregation,  to  be  among  its  most  valued 
members.  Peter  Cooper  was  even  then  meditating 
that  plan  of  a  grand  educational  institute  which 
he  afterwards  carried  out.  He  was  engaged  in  a 
larire  and  successful  business,  and  his  one  idea  — 
which  he  often  discussed  with  me  —  was  to  obtain 
the  means  of  building  that  institute.  A  man  of 
the  gentlest  nature  and  the  simplest  habits;  yet 
his  religious  nature  was  his  most  remarkable  qual- 
ity. It  seemed  to  breathe  through  his  life  as  fresh 
and  tender  as  if  it  were  in  some  holy  retreat,  in- 
stead of  a  life  of  business." 

Indeed  there  are  several  aged  Xew  Yorkers  who 
can  well  remember  hearing  Mr.  Cooper  speak  of 
his  project  at  that  period. 

After  forty  years  of  successful  business  life,  he 
found,  upon  estimating  his  resources,  that  he  pos- 
sessed about  seven  hundred  thousand  dollars  over 
and  above  the  capital  invested  in  his  glue  and  iron 
works.  Already  he  had  become  the  owner  of  por- 
tions of  the  ground  he  had  selected  so  long  ago  for 
the  site  of  his  school.  The  first  lot  he  bought,  as 
Mr.  Hewitt  informs  me,  about  thirty  years  before 


328  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

he  began  to  build,  and  from  that  time  onward  he 
continued  to  buy  pieces  of  the  ground  as  often  as 
they  were  for  sale,  if  he  could  spare  the  money ; 
until  in  1854  the  whole  block  was  his  own. 

At  first  his  intention  was  merely  to  establish  and 
endow  just  such  an  evening  school  as  he  had  felt 
the  need  of  when  he  was  an  apprentice  boy  in  New 
York.  But  long  before  he  was  ready  to  begin, 
there  were  free  evening  schools  as  well  as  day 
schools  in  every  ward  of  the  city,  and  he  therefore 
resolved  to  found  something,  he  knew  not  what, 
which  should  impart  to  apprentices  and  young  me- 
chanics a  knowledge  of  the  arts  and  sciences  under- 
lying the  ordinary  trades,  such  as  drawing,  chem- 
istry, mechanics,  and  various  branches  of  natural 
philosophy. 

While  he  was  revolving  this  scheme  in  his  mind 
he  happened  to  meet  in  the  street  a  highly  accom- 
plished physician  who  had  just  returned  from  a 
tour  in  Europe,  and  who  began  at  once  to  describe 
in  glowing  words  the  Polytechnic  School  of  Paris, 
wherein  mechanics  and  engineers  receive  the  in- 
struction which  their  professions  require.  The  doc- 
tor said  that  young  men  came  from  all  parts  of 
France  and  lived  on  dry  bread,  just  to  attend  the 
Polytechnic. 

He  was  no  longer  in  doubt ;  he  entered  at  once 
upon  the  realization  of  his  project.  Beginning  to 
build  in  1854,  he  erected  a  massive  structure  of 
brick,  stone,  and  iron,  six  stories  in  height,  and  fire- 


PETER   COOPER.  329 

proof  in  every  part,  at  a  cost  of  seven  hundred 
thousand  dollars,  the  savings  of  his  lifetime  up  to 
that  period.  Five  years  after,  he  delivered  the 
complete  structure,  with  the  hearty  consent  of  his 
wife,  his  children,  and  his  son-in-law,  into  the  hands 
of  trustees,  thus  placing  it  beyond  his  own  control 
forever.  Two  thousand  pupils  at  once  applied  for 
admission.  From  that  day  to  this  the  Institute 
has  continued  from  year  to  year  to  enlarge  its 
scope  and  improve  its  methods.  Mr.  Cooper  added 
something  every  year  to  its  resources,  until  his  en- 
tire gift  to  the  public  amounted  to  about  two  mil- 
lions of  dollars. 

Peter  Cooper  lived  to  the  great  age  of  ninety- 
two.  No  face  in  New  York  was  more  familiar  to 
the  people,  and  surely  none  was  so  welcome  to  them 
as  the  benign,  placid,  beaming  countenance  of  "  Old 
Peter  Cooper."  The  roughest  cartman,  the  most 
reckless  hack  driver  would  draw  up  his  horses  and 
wait  without  a  word  of  impatience,  if  it  was  Peter 
Cooper's  quaint  old  gig  that  blocked  the  way.  He 
was  one  of  the  most  uniformly  happy  persons  I 
have  ever  met,  and  he  retained  his  cheerfulness  to 
the  very  end.  Being  asked  one  day  in  his  nine- 
tieth year,  how  he  had  preserved  so  well  his  bodily 
and  mental  vigor,  he  replied :  — 

"  I  always  find  something  to  keep  me  busy ;  and 
to  be  doing  something  for  the  good  of  man,  or  to 
keep  the  wheels  in  motion,  is  the  best  medicine  one 
can  take.     I  run  up  and  down  stairs  here  almost  as 


330  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

easily  as  I  did  years  ago,  when  I  never  expected 
that  my  term  would  run  into  the  nineties.  I  have 
occasional  twinges  from  the  nervous  shock  and 
physical  injury  sustained  from  an  explosion  that  oc- 
curred while  I  was  conducting  some  experiments 
with  nitrogen  gas  years  ago.  In  other  respects  my 
days  pass  as  painlessly  as  they  did  when  I  was  a 
boy  carrying  a  grocer's  basket  about  the  streets.  It 
is  very  curious,  but  somehow,  though  I  have  none 
of  the  pains  and  troubles  that  old  men  talk  about, 
I  have  not  the  same  luxury  of  life  —  the  same  rel- 
ish in  the  mere  act  of  living  —  that  I  had  then. 
Age  is  like  .babyhood  come  back  again  in  a  cer- 
tain way.  Even  the  memories  of  baby-life  come 
back  —  the  tricks,  the  pranks,  the  boyish  dreams  ; 
and  things  that  I  did  not  remember  at  forty  or  fifty 
years  old  I  recollect  vividly  now.  But  a  boy  of 
ninety  and  a  boy  of  nine  are  very  different  things, 
none  the  less.  I  never  felt  better  in  my  life  ex- 
cept for  twinges  occasioned  by  my  nitrogen  expe- 
riment. But  still  I  hear  a  voice  calling  to  me,  as 
my  mother  often  did,  when  I  was  a  boy  'Peter, 
Peter,  it  is  about  bed-time,'  and  I  have  an  old  man's 
presentiment  that  I  shall  be  taken  soon." 

He  loved  the  Institute  he  had  founded  to  the 
last  hour  of  his  consciousness.  A  few  weeks  be- 
fore his  death  he  said  to  Reverend  Robert  Coll- 
yer:  — 

"  I  would  be  glad  to  have  four  more  years  of 
life  given  me,  for  I  am  anxious  to  make  some  addi- 


PETER   COOPER.  331 

tional  improvements  in  Cooper  Union,  and  then 
part  of  my  life-work  would  be  complete.  If  I 
could  only  live  four  years  longer  I  would  die  con- 
tent." 

Dr.  Collyer  adds  this  pleasing  anecdote  :  — 
"  I  remember  a  talk  I  had  with  him  not  long  be- 
fore his  death,  in  which  he  said  that  a  Presbyte- 
rian minister  of  great  reputation  and  ability,  but 
who  has  since  died,  had  called  upon  him  one  day 
and  among  other  things  discussed  the  future  life. 
They  were  old  and  tried  friends,  the  minister  and 
Mr.  Cooper,  and  when  the  clergyman  began  to 
question  Mr.  Cooper's  belief,  he  said :  '  I  some- 
times think  that  if  one  has  too  good  a  time  here 
below,  there  is  less  reason  for  him  to  go  to  heaven. 
I  have  had  a  very  good  time,  but  I  know  poor 
creatures  whose  lives  have  been  spent  in  a  constant 
struggle  for  existence.  They  should  have  some 
reward  hereafter.  They  have  worked  here  ;  they 
should  be  rewarded  after  death.  The  only  doubts 
that  I  have  about  the  future  are  whether  I  have 
not  had  too  good  a  time  on  earth.' 

He  died  in  April,  1883,  from  a  severe  cold  which 
he  had  not  the  strength  to  throw  off.  His  end 
was  as  peaceful  and  painless  as  his  life  had  been 
innocent  and  beneficial. 


PAKIS-DUVERNEY. 

FRENCH  FINANCIER. 


Some  one  has  remarked  that  the  old  French 
monarchy  was  a  despotism  tempered  by  epigrams. 
I  take  the  liberty  of  adding  that  if  the  despotism 
of  the  later  French  kings  had  not  been  frequently 
tempered  by  something  more  effectual  than  epi- 
grams, it  would  not  have  lasted  as  long  as  it  did. 

What  tempered  and  saved  it  was,  that,  occasion- 
ally, by  hook  or  by  crook,  men  of  sterling  sense  and 
ability  rose  from  the  ordinary  walks  of  life  to  posi- 
tions of  influence  and  power,  which  enabled  them 
to  counteract  the  folly  of  the  ruling  class. 

About  the  year  1791  there  was  an  inn  at  the 
foot  of  the  Alps,  near  the  border  line  that  divided 
France  from  Switzerland,  bearing  the  sign,  St. 
Francis  of  the  Mountain.  There  was  no  village 
near.  The  inn  stood  alone  among  the  mountains, 
being  supported  in  part  by  travelers  going  from 
France  to  Geneva,  and  in  part  by  the  sale  of  wine 
to  the  farmers  who  lived  in  the  neighborhood.  The 
landlord,  named  Paris,  was  a  man  of  intelligence 
and  ability,  who,  besides  keeping  his  inn,  cultivated 


PAPJS-DUVERNEY.  333 

a  farm ;  assisted  in  botli  by  energetic,  capable  sons, 
of  whom  he  had  four  :  Antoine,  aged  twenty-three ; 
Claude,  twenty-one ;  Joseph,  seven ;  and  Jean,  an 
infant.  It  was  a  strong,  able  family,  who  loved 
and  confided  in  one  another,  having  no  thought  but 
to  live  and  die  near  the  spot  upon  which  they  were 
born,  and  in  about  the  same  sphere  of  life. 

But  such  was  not  their  destiny.  An  intrigue  of 
the  French  ministry  drew  these  four  sons  from  ob- 
scurity, and  led  them  to  the  high  places  of  the 
world.  Pontchartrain,  whose  name  is  still  borne 
by  a  lake  in  Louisiana,  was  then  minister  of  finance 
to  Louis  XIV.  To  facilitate  the  movements  of  the 
army  in  the  war  then  going  on  between  France  and 
Savoy,  he  proposed  to  the  king  the  formation  of  a 
company  which  should  contract  to  supply  the  army 
with  provisions ;  and,  the  king  accepting  his  sugges- 
tion, the  company  was  formed,  and  began  opera- 
tions. But  the  secretary  of  war  took  this  movement 
of  his  colleague  in  high  dudgeon,  as  the  supply  of 
the  army,  he  thought,  belonged  to  the  war  depart- 
ment. To  frustrate  and  disgrace  the  new  company 
of  contractors,  he  ordered  the  army  destined  to  op- 
erate in  Italy  to  take  the  field  on  the  first  of  May, 
several  weeks  before  it  was  possible  for  the  contract- 
ors by  the  ordinary  methods  to  collect  and  move 
the  requisite  supplies.  The  company  explained  the 
impossibility  of  their  feeding  the  army  so  early  in 
the  season ;  but  the  minister  of  war,  not  ill-pleased 
to  see  his  rival  embarrassed,  held  to  his  purpose, 


334  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

and  informed  the  contractors'  agent  that  he  must 
have  thirty  thousand  sacks  of  flour  at  a  certain  post 
by  a  certain  day,  or  his  head  should  answer  it. 

The  agent,  alarmed,  and  at  his  wits'  end,  con- 
sulted the  innkeeper  of  the  Alps,  whom  he  knew  to 
be  an  energetic  spirit,  and  perfectly  well  acquainted 
with  the  men,  the  animals,  the  resources,  and  the 
roads  of  the  region  in  which  he  lived,  and  through 
which  the  provisions  would  have  to  pass.  The 
elder  sons  of  the  landlord  were  in  the  field  at  the 
time  at  work,  and  he  told  the  agent  he  must 
wait  a  few  hours  till  he  could  talk  the  matter  over 
with  them.  At  the  close  of  the  day  there  was  a 
family  consultation,  and  the  result  was  that  they 
undertook  the  task.  Antoine,  the  eldest  son,  went 
to  Lyons,  the  nearest  large  city,  and  induced  the 
magistrates  to  lend  the  king  the  grain  preserved  in 
the  public  depositories  against  famine,  engaging  to 
replace  it  as  soon  as  the  navigation  opened  in  the 
spring.  The  magistrates,  full  of  zeal  for  the  king's 
service,  yielded  willingly ;  and  meanwhile,  Claude, 
the  second  of  the  brothers,  bought  a  thousand 
mules ;  and,  in  a  very  few  days,  in  spite  of  the 
rigor  of  the  season,  long  lines  of  mules,  each  laden 
with  a  sack  of  flour,  were  winding  their  way 
through  the  denies  of  the  Alps,  guided  by  peas- 
ants whom  the  father  of  these  boys  had  selected. 

This  operation  being  insufficient,  hundreds  of 
laborers  were  set  to  work  breaking  the  ice  in  the 
night,  and  in  constructing  barges,  so  as  to  be  in 


PARIS-DUVERNEY.  335 

readiness  the  moment  navigation  was  practica- 
ble. 

Early  in  the  spring  two  hundred  barge  loads 
were  set  floating  down  toward  the  seat  of  war ;  and 
by  the  time  the  general  in  command  was  ready  to 
take  the  field,  there  was  an  abundance  of  tents, 
provisions,  ammunition,  and  artillery  within  easy 
reach. 

The  innkeeper  and  his  sons  were  liberally  recom- 
pensed ;  and  their  talents  thus  being  made  known 
to  the  company  of  contractors,  they  were  employed 
again  a  year  or  two  after  in  collecting  the  means 
required  in  a  siege,  and  in  forwarding  provisions 
to  a  province  threatened  with  famine.  These  large 
operations  gave  the  brothers  a  certain  distaste  for 
their  country  life,  and  they  removed  to  Paris  in 
quest  of  a  more  stirring  and  brilliant  career  than 
an  Alpine  inn  with  farm  adjacent  could  afford. 
One  of  them  enlisted  at  first  in  the  king's  guards, 
and  the  rest  obtained  clerkships  in  the  office  of  the 
company  of  contractors.  By  the  time  they  were  all 
grown  to  manhood,  the  eldest,  a  man  over  foily, 
and  the  youngest,  eighteen  or  twenty,  they  had 
themselves  become  army  contractors  and  capital- 
ists, noted  in  army  circles  for  the  tact,  the  fidelity, 
and  the  indomitable  energy  with  which  they  car- 
ried on  their  business. 

The  reader  is  aware  that  during  the  last  years  of 
the  reism  of  Louis  XIV.,  France  suffered  a  series 
of  most  disastrous  defeats  from  the  allied  armies, 


336  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

commanded  by  the  great  English  general,  the  Duke 
of  Marlborough.  It  was  these  four  able  brothers 
who  supplied  the  French  army  with  provisions  dur- 
ing that  terrible  time ;  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say, 
that,  on  two  or  three  critical  occasions,  it  was  their 
energy  and  intelligence  that  saved  the  independ- 
ence of  their  country.  Often  the  king's  govern- 
ment could  not  give  them  a  single  louis-d'or  in 
money  when  a  famishing  army  was  to  be  supplied. 
On  several  occasions  they  spent  their  whole  capital 
in  the  work  and  risked  their  credit.  There  was  one 
period  of  five  months,  as  they  used  afterwards  to 
say,  when  they  never  once  went  to  bed  sure  of  being 
able  to  feed  the  army  the  next  day.  During  those 
years  of  trial  they  were  sustained  in  a  great  de- 
gree by  the  confidence  which  they  inspired  in  their 
honesty,  as  well  as  in  their  ability.  The  great 
French  banker  and  capitalist  then  was  Samuel  Ber- 
nard. On  more  than  one  occasion  Bernard  saved 
them  by  lending  them,  on  their  personal  security, 
immense  sums  ;  in  one  crisis  as  much  as  three  mil- 
lion francs. 

AVe  can  judge  of  the  extent  of  their  opera- 
tions, when  we  learn  that,  during  the  last  two 
years  of  the  war,  they  had  to  supply  a  hundred 
and  eighty  thousand  men  in  the  field,  and  twenty 
thousand  men  in  garrison,  while  receiving  from  the 
government  little  besides  depreciated  paper. 

Peace  came  at  last;  and  it  came  at  a  moment 
when  the  whole  capital  of  the  four  brothers  was  in 


PABIS-DUVEKNEY.  337 

the  king's  paper,  and  when  the  finances  were  in  a 
state  of  inconceivable  confusion.  The  old  king 
died  in  1715,  leaving  as  heir  to  the  throne  a  sickly 
boy  five  years  of  age.  The  royal  paper  was  so 
much  depreciated  that  the  king's  promise  to  pay 
one  hundred  francs  sold  in  the  street  for  twenty- 
five  francs.  Then  came  the  Scotch  inflator,  John 
Law,  who  gave  France  a  brief  delirium  of  paper 
prosperity,  ending  with  the  most  woful  and  wide- 
spread collapse  ever  known.  It  was  these  four 
brothers,  but  especially  the  third  brother,  Joseph 
Paris,  known  in  French  history  as  Paris-Duverney, 
who,  by  labors  almost  without  example,  restored 
the  finances  of  the  country,  funded  the  debt  at  a 
reasonable  interest,  and  enabled  France  to  profit 
by  the  twenty  years  of  peace  that  lay  before  her. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  whole  history  of  finance 
more  remarkable  than  the  five  years'  labors  of  these 
brothers  after  the  Law-mania  of  1719  ;  and  it  is 
hardly  possible  to  overstate  the  value  of  their  ser- 
vices at  a  time  when  the  kingdom  was  governed  by 
an  idle  and  dissolute  regent,  and  when  there  was 
not  a  nobleman  about  the  court  capable  of  grap- 
pling with  the  situation.  The  regent  died  of  his  de- 
baucheries in  the  midst  of  their  work.  The  Duke 
of  Bourbon  succeeded  him  ;  he  was  governed  by 
Madame  de  Prie ;  and  between  them  they  concocted 
a  nice  scheme  for  getting  the  young  king  married, 
who  had  then  reached  the  mature  aae  of  fifteen. 
The  idea  was  to  rule  the  king  through  a  queen  of 

22 


338  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

their  own  choosing,  and  who  would  be  grateful  to 
the  in  for  her  elevation. 

But  it  turned  out  quite  otherwise.  The  king,  in- 
deed, was  married,  and  he  was  very  fond  of  his  wife, 
and  she  tried  to  carry  out  the  desires  of  those  who 
had  made  her  queen  of  France.  But  there  was 
an  obstacle  in  the  way  ;  and  that  obstacle  was  the 
king's  unbounded  confidence  in  his  tutor,  the  Abbe 
de  Fleury,  a  serene  and  extremely  agreeable  old 
gentleman  past  seventy.  A  struggle  arose  between 
the  old  tutor  and  Madame  de  Prie  for  the  posses- 
sion of  the  young  king.  The  tutor  won  the  victory. 
The  Duke  of  Bourbon  was  exiled  to  his  country- 
seat,  and  Madame  de  Prie  was  sent  packing. 
Paris-Duverney  and  his  first  clerk  were  put  into 
the  Bastille,  where  they  were  detained  for  two 
years  in  unusually  rigorous  imprisonment,  and  his 
three  brothers  were  exiled  to  their  native  province. 

Another  intrigue  of  court  set  them  free  again, 
and  the  four  brothers  were  once  more  in  Paris, 
where  they  continued  their  career  as  bankers,  con- 
tractors, and  capitalists  as  long  as  they  lived,  each 
of  them  acquiring  and  leaving  a  colossal  fortune, 
which  their  heirs  were  considerate  enough  to  dis- 
sipate. It  was  Paris-Duverney  who  suggested  and 
managed  the  great  military  school  at  Paris,  which 
still  exists.  It  was  he  also  who  helped  make  the 
fortunes  of  the  most  celebrated  literary  men  of 
his  time,  Voltaire  and  Beaumarchais.  He  did  this 
by  admitting  them  to  a  share  in  army  contracts, 


PARIS-DUVERNEY.  339 

one  of  which  yielded  Voltaire  a  profit  of  seven 
hundred  thousand  francs,  which,  with  good  nurs- 
ing, made  him  at  last  the  richest  literary  man  that 
ever  lived. 

Paris-Duverney  was  as  good  a  man  and  patriot 
as  a  man  could  well  be  who  had  to  work  with  and 
under  such  persons  as  Louis  XV.  and  Madame  de 
Pompadour.  By  way  of  showing  what  difficulties 
men  had  to  overcome  who  then  desired  to  serve 
their  country,  I  will  mention  a  single  incident  of 
his  later  career. 

His  favorite  work,  the  Ecole  Militaire,  of  which 
he  was  the  first  superintendent,  shared  the  unpop- 
ularity of  its  early  patron,  Madame  de  Pompadour, 
and  long  he  strove  in  vain  to  bring  it  into  favor. 
To  use  the  narrative  of  M.  de  Lomenie,  the  biogra- 
pher of  Beaumarchais :  — 

"He  was  constantly  at  court,  laboring  without 
cessation  on  behalf  of  the  military  school,  and  solicit- 
ing the  king  in  vain  to  visit  it  in  state,  which  would 
have  given  a  sort  of  prestige.  Coldly  received  by 
the  dauphin,  the  queen,  and  the  princesses,  he 
could  not,  as  the  friend  of  Madame  de  Pompadour, 
obtain  from  the  nonchalance  of  Louis  XV.  the  visit 
which  he  so  much  desired,  when  the  idea  struck 
him,  in  his  despair,  of  having  recourse  to  the  young- 
harpist,  who  appeared  to  be  so  assiduous  in  his 
attendance  on  the  princesses,  and  who  directed 
their  concert  every  week.  Beaumarchais  under- 
stood at  once  the  advantage  he  might  derive  from 


340  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

rendering  an  important  service  to  a  clever,  rich,  old 
financier,  who  had  still  a  number  of  affairs  in  hand, 
and  who  was  capable  of  bringing  him  both  wealth 
and  advancement.  But  how  could  a  musician  with- 
out importance  hope  to  obtain  from  the  king  what 
had  already  been  refused  to  solicitations  of  much 
more  influence  than  his  own  ?  Beaumarchais  went 
to  work  like  a  man  who  had  a  genius  for  dramatic 
intrigue  and  a  knowledge  of  the  human  heart. 

"  We  have  shown  that,  while  he  was  giving  his 
time  and  attention  to  the  princesses,  he  never  asked 
for  anything  in  return.  He  thought  that  if  he  were 
fortunate  enough  to  persuade  them,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, to  pay  a  visit  to  the  Ecole  Militaire,  the 
curiosity  of  the  king  perhaps  would  be  excited  by 
the  narrative  of  what  they  had  seen,  and  would 
lead  him  to  do  that  which  he  would  never  have 
been  prompted  to  do  by  justice.  He  accordingly 
represented  to  the  princesses  not  only  the  equita- 
ble side  of  the  question,  but  also  the  immense  in- 
terest which  he  himself  had  in  obtaining  this  favor 
for  a  man  who  might  be  of  great  use  to  him.  The 
princesses  consented  to  visit  the  Ecole  Militaire, 
and  Beaumarchais  was  granted  the  honor  of  ac- 
companying them.  The  director  received  them 
with  great  splendor  ;  they  did  not  conceal  from 
him  the  great  interest  they  took  in  their  young 
protege,  and  some  days  afterward  Louis  XV., 
urged  by  his  daughters,  visited  it  himself,  and 
thus  gratified  the  wishes  of  old  Duverney. 


PARIS-DUVERNEY.  341 

"From  this  moment  the  financier,  grateful  for 
Beaumarchais'  good  services,  and  delighted  to  find 
a  person  who  could  assist  him  as  an  intermediary 
in  his  intercourse  with  the  court,  resolved  to  make 
the  young  man's  fortune.  He  began  by  giving  him 
a  share  in  one  of  his  speculations  to  the  amount  of 
sixty  thousand  francs,  on  which  he  paid  him  inter- 
est at  the  rate  of  ten  per  cent.  ;  after  this,  he  gave 
him  an  interest  in  various  other  affairs.  '  He  in- 
itiated me,'  says  Beaumarchais,  '  into  the  secrets 
of  finance,  of  which,  as  every  one  knows,  he  was  a 
consummate  master.' ' 

Such  was  government  in  the  good  old  times  !  I 
like  to  think  of  it  when  things  go  amiss  in  Wash- 
ington or  Albany.  Lej;  our  rulers  do  as  badly  as 
they  may,  they  cannot  do  worse  than  the  rulers  of 
the  world  did  a  century  and  a  half  ago.  If  any 
good  or  great  thing  was  done  in  those  days,  it  was 
done  in  spite  of  the  government. 


SIR  ROWLAND  HILL. 


The  poet  Coleridge,  on  one  of  his  long  walks 
among  the  English  lakes,  stopped  at  a  roadside  inn 
for  dinner,  and  while  he  was  there  the  letter-carrier 
came  in,  bringing  a  letter  for  the  girl  who  was  wait- 
ing upon  him.  The  postage  was  a  shilling,  nearly 
twenty-five  cents.  She  looked  long  and  lovingly  at 
the  letter,  holding  it  in  her  hand,  and  then  gave  it 
back  to  the  man,  telling  him  that  she  could  not  af- 
ford to  pay  the  postage.  Coleridge  at  once  offered 
the  shilling,  which  the  girl  after  much  hesitation 
accepted.  When  the  carrier  was  gone  she  told 
him  that  he  had  thrown  his  shilling  away,  for  the 
pretended  letter  was  only  a  blank  sheet  *  of  paper. 
On  the  outside  there  were  some  small  marks  which 
she  had  carefully  noted  before  giving  the  letter 
back  to  the  carrier.  Those  marks  were  the  letter, 
which  was  from  her  brother,  with  whom  she  had 
agreed  upon  a  short  -  hand  system  by  which  to 
communicate  news  without  expense.  "  We  are  so 
poor,"  said  she  to  the  poet,  "  that  we  have  invented 
this  manner  of  corresponding  and  sending  our  let- 
ters free." 


SIR  ROWLAND   HILL. 


SIR  ROWLAND  HILL.  343 

The  shilling  which  the  postman  demanded  was, 
in  fact,  about  a  week's  wages  to  a  girl  in  her  con- 
dition fifty  years  ago.  Nor  was  it  poor  girls  only 
who  then  played  tricks  upon  the  post-office.  En- 
velopes franked  by  honorable  members  of  Parlia- 
ment were  a  common  article  of  merchandise,  for  it 
was  the  practice  of  their  clerks  and  servants  to 
procure  and  sell  them.  Indeed,  the  postal  laws 
were  so  generally  evaded  that,  in  some  large  towns, 
the  department  was  cheated  of  three  quarters  of  its 
revenue.  Who  can  wonder  at  it?  It  cost  more 
then  to  send  a  letter  from  one  end  of  London  to 
,the  other,  or  from  New  York  to  Harlem,  than  it 
now  does  to  send  a  letter  from  Egypt  to  San  Fran- 
cisco. The  worst  effect  of  dear  postage  was  the 
obstacles  it  placed  in  the  way  of  correspondence  be- 
tween poor  families  who  were  separated  by  distance. 
It  made  correspondence  next  to  impossible  between 
poor  people  in  Europe  and  their  relations  in  Amer- 
ica. Think  of  an  Irish  laborer  who  earned  six- 
pence a  day  paying  seventy-five  cents  to  get  news 
from  a  daughter  in  Cincinnati !  It  required  the 
savings  of  three  or  four  months. 

The  man  who  changed  all  this,  Sir  Rowland  Hill, 
died  only  three  years  ago  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
three.  I  have  often  said  that  an  American  ought 
to  have  invented  the  new  postal  system ;  and  Row- 
land Hill,  though  born  and  reared  in  England,  and 
descended  from  a  long  line  of  English  ancestors, 
was  very  much  an  American.     He  was  educated  on 


344  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

the  American  plan.  His  mind  was  American,  and 
he  had  the  American  way  of  looking  at  things  with 
a  view  to  improving  them. 

His  father  was  a  Birmingham  schoolmaster,  a 
free  trader,  and  more  than  half  a  republican.  He 
brought  up  his  six  sons  and  two  daughters  to  use 
their  minds  and  their  tongues.  His  eldest  son,  the 
recorder  of  Birmingham,  once  wrote  of  his  father 
thus :  — 

"  Perhaps  the  greatest  obligation  we  owe  our  fa- 
ther is  this :  that,  from  infancy,  he  would  reason 
with  us,  and  so  observe  all  the  rules  of  fair  play, 
that  we  put  forth  our  little  strength  without  fear. 
Arguments  were  taken  at  their  just  weight ;  the 
sword  of  authority  was  not  thrown  into  the  scale." 

Miss  Edgeworth's  tales  deeply  impressed  the  boy, 
and  he  made  up  his  mind  in  childhood  to  follow  the 
path  which  she  recommended,  and  do  something 
which  should  greatly  benefit  mankind. 

At  the  age  of  eleven  he  began  to  assist  in  teach- 
ing his  father's  pupils.  At  twelve  he  was  a  pupil 
no  more,  and  gave  himself  wholly  up  to  teaching. 
Long  before  he  was  of  age  he  had  taken  upon  him- 
self all  the  mere  business  of  the  school,  and  man- 
aged it  so  well  as  to  pay  off  debts  which  had  weighed 
heavily  upon  the  family  ever  since  he  was  born.  At 
the  same  time  he  invented  new  methods  of  govern- 
ing the  school.  He  was  one  of  the  first  to  abolish 
corporal  punishment.  He  converted  his  school  into 
a  republic  governed  by  a  constitution  and  code  of 


SIR  ROWLAND  HILL.  345 

laws,  which  filled  a  printed  volume  of  more  than  a 
hundred  pages,  which  is  still  in  the  possession  of 
his  family.  His  school,  we  are  told,  was  governed 
by  it  for  many  years.  If  a  boy  was  accused  of  a 
fault,  he  had  the  right  of  being  tried  by  a  jury  of 
his  school-fellows.  Monitors  were  elected  by  the 
boys,  and  these  monitors  met  to  deliberate  upon 
school  matters  as  a  little  parliament. 

Upon  looking  back  in  old  age  upon  this  wonder- 
ful school,  he  doubted  very  much  whether  the  plan 
was  altogether  good.  "  The  democratic  idea,  he 
thought,  was  carried  too  far ;  it  made  the  boys  too 
positive  and  argumentative. 

"I  greatly  doubt,"  said  he  once,  "if  I  should 
send  my  own  son  to  a  school  conducted  on  such  a 
complicated  system." 

It  had,  nevertheless,  admirable  features,  which 
he  originated,  and  which  are  now  generally  adopted. 
Toward  middle  life  he  became  tired  of  this  labo- 
rious business,  though  he  had  the  largest  private 
school  in  that  part  of  England.  His  health  failed, 
and  he  felt  the  need  of  change  and  rest.  Having 
now  some  leisure  upon  his  hands  he  began  to  in- 
vent and  project. 

His  attention  was  first  called  to  the  postal  sys- 
tem merely  by  the  high  price  of  postage.  It  struck 
him  as  absurd  that  it  should  cost  thirteen  pence  to 
convey  half  an  ounce  of  paper  from  London  to 
Birmingham,  while  several  pounds  of  merchandise 
could  be  carried  for  sixpence.     Upon  studying  the 


846  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

subject,  he  found  that  the  mere  carriage  of  a  letter 
between  two  post-offices  cost  scarcely  anything, 
the  chief  expense  being  incurred  at  the  post-offices 
in  starting  and  receiving  it.  He  found  that  the 
actual  cost  of  conveying  a  letter  from  London  to 
Edinburgh,  four  hundred  and  four  miles,  was  one 
eighteenth  of  a  cent !  This  fact  it  was  which  led 
him  to  the  admirable  idea  of  the  uniform  rate  of 
one  penny  —  for  all  distances. 

At  that  time  a  letter  from  London  to  Edinburgh 
was  charged  about  twenty-eight  cents ;  but  if  it 
contained  the  smallest  inclosure,  even  half  a  bank- 
note, or  a  strip  of  tissue  paper,  the  postage  was 
doubled.  In  short,  the  whole  service  was  incum- 
bered with  absurdities,  which  no  one  noticed  be- 
cause they  were  old.  In  1837,  after  an  exhaustive 
study  of  the  whole  system,  he  published  his  pam- 
phlet, entitled  Post-Office  Reforms,  in  which  he 
suggested  his  improvements,  and  gave  the  reasons 
for  them.  The  post-office  department,  of  course, 
treated  his  suggestions  with  complete  contempt. 
But  the  public  took  a  different  view  of  the  matter. 
The  press  warmly  advocated  his  reforms.  The 
thunderer  of  the  London  "  Times  "  favored  them. 
Petitions  poured  into  Parliament.  Daniel  O'Con- 
nell  spoke  in  its  favor. 

"  Consider,  my  lord,"  said  he  to  the  premier, 
"that  a  letter  to  Ireland  and  the  answer  back 
would  cost  thousands  upon  thousands  of  my  poor 
and  affectionate  countrymen  more  than  a  fifth  of 


SIR  ROWLAND  HILL.  347 

their  week's  wages.  If  you  shut  the  post-office  to 
them,  which  you  do  now,  you  shut  out  warm  hearts 
and  generous  affections  from  home,  kindred,  and 
friends." 

The  ministry  yielded,  and  on  January  10,  1840, 
penny  postage  became  the  law  of  the  British  Em- 
pire. As  the  whole  postal  service  had  to  be  reor- 
ganized, the  government  offered  Rowland  Hill  the 
task  of  introducing  the  new  system,  and  proposed 
to  give  him  five  hundred  pounds  a  year  for  two 
years.  He  spurned  the  proposal,  and  offered  to 
do  the  work  for  nothing.  He  was  then  offered  fif- 
teen hundred  pounds  a  year  for  two  years,  and 
this  he  accepted  rather  than  see  his  plan  misman- 
aged by  persons  who  did  not  believe  in  it.  After 
many  difficulties,  the  new  system  was  set  in  mo- 
tion, and  was  a  triumphant  success  from  the  first 
year. 

A  Tory  ministry  coming  in,  they  had  the  incred- 
ible folly  to  dismiss  the  reformer,  and  he  retired 
from  the  public  service  without  reward.  The  Eng- 
lish people  are  not  accustomed  to  have  their  faith- 
ful servants  treated  in  that  manner,  and  there  was 
a  universal  burst  of  indignation.  A  national  testi- 
monial was  started.  A  public  dinner  was  given 
him,  at  which  he  was  presented  with  a  check  for 
sixty-five  thousand  dollars.  He  was  afterwards 
placed  in  charge  of  the  post-office  department,  al- 
though with  a  lord  over  his  head  as  nominal  chief. 
This  lord  was  a  Tory  of  the  old  school,  and  wished 


348  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

to  use  the  post-office  to  reward  political  and  per- 
sonal friends.     Rowland  Hill  said  :  — 

"  No,  my  lord ;  appointment  and  promotion  for 
merit  only." 

They  quarreled  upon  this  point,  and  Rowland 
Hill  resigned.  The  queen  sent  a  message  to  the 
House  of  Commons  asking  for  twenty  thousand 
pounds  as  a  national  gift  to  Sir  Rowland  Hill, 
which  was  granted,  and  he  was  also  allowed  to  re- 
tire from  office  upon  his  full  salary  of  two  thousand 
pounds  a  year.  That  is  the  way  to  treat  a  public 
benefactor ;  and  nations  which  treat  their  servants 
in  that  spirit  are  likely  to  be  well  served. 

The  consequences  of  this  postal  reform  are  mar- 
velous to  think  of.  The  year  before  the  new  plan 
was  adopted  in  Great  Britain,  one  hundred  and  six 
millions  of  letters  and  papers  were  sent  through 
the  post-office.  Year  before  last  the  number  was 
one  thousand  four  hundred  and  seventy-eight  mil- 
lions. In  other  words,  the  average  number  of  let- 
ters per  inhabitant  has  increased  from  three  per 
annum  to  thirty-two.  The  United  States,  which 
ought  to  have  taken  the  lead  in  this  matter,  was 
not  slow  to  follow,  and  every  civilized  country  has 
since  adopted  the  system. 

A  few  weeks  before  Sir  Rowland  Hill's  death, 
the  freedom  of  the  city  of  London  was  presented 
to  him  in  a  gold  box.  He  died  in  August,  1881, 
full  of  years  and  honors. 


MARXE-ANTOINE  CAKEME, 

FRENCH  COOK. 


Domestic  servants  occupy  in  France  a  some- 
what more  elevated  position  in  the  social  scale  than 
is  accorded  them  in  other  countries.  As  a  class, 
too,  they  are  more  intelligent,  better  educated,  and 
more  skillful  than  servants  elsewhere.  There  are 
several  works  in  the  French  language  designed  ex- 
pressly for  their  instruction,  some  of  the  best  of 
which  were  written,  or  professed  to  have  been  writ- 
ten, by  servants.  On  the  counter  of  a  French  book- 
store you  will  sometimes  see  such  works  as  the  fol- 
lowing :  "  The  Perfect  Coachman,"  "  The  Life  of 
Jasmin,  the  Good  Laquey,"  "  Rules  for  the  Govern- 
ment of  Shepherds  and  Shepherdesses,  by  the  Good 
Shepherd,"  "The  Well-Regulated  Household," 
"Duties  of  Servants  of  both  Sexes  toward  God  and 
toward  their  Masters  and  Mistresses,  by  a  Servant," 
"  How  to  Train  a  Good  Domestic." 

Some  books  of  this  kind  are  of  considerable  an- 
tiquity and  have  assisted  in  forming  several  gener- 
ations of  domestic  servants.  One  of  them,  it  is 
said,  entitled,  "  The  Perfect  Coachman,"  was  writ- 


350  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

ten  by  a  prince  of  the  reigning  house  of  France. 
In  France,  as  in  most  old  countries,  few  people  ex- 
pect to  change  their  condition  in  life.  Once  a  ser- 
vant, always  a  servant.  It  is  common  for  parents 
in  humble  life  to  apprentice  their  children  to  some 
branch  of  domestic  service,  satisfied  if  they  become 
excellent  in  their  vocation,  and  win  at  length  the 
distinctions  and  promotions  which  belong  to  it. 

Lady  Morgan,  who  visited  Paris  several  years 
ago,  relates  an  anecdote  or  two  showing  how  intelli- 
gent some  French  servants  are.  She  was  walking 
along  the  Quai  Voltaire,  followed  by  her  French 
lackey,  when  he  suddenly  came  to  her  side  and, 
pointing  to  a  house,  said  :  — 

"  There,  madam,  is  a  house  consecrated  to  gen- 
ius. There  died  Voltaire  —  in  that  apartment  with 
the  shutters  closed.  There  died  the  first  of  our 
great  men  ;  perhaps  also  the  last." 

On  another  occasion  the  same  man  objected  to  a 
note  which  she  had  written  in  the  French  lan- 
guage. 

"  Is  it  not  good  French,  then?  "  asked  the  lady. 

"  Oh,  yes,  madam,"  replied  he  ;  "  the  French  is 
very  good,  but  the  style  is  too  cold.  You  begin  by 
saying,  You  regret  that  you  cannot  have  the  pleas- 
ure.    You  should  say,  I  am  in  despair" 

"  Well,  then,"  said  Lady  Morgan,  "  write  it 
yourself." 

"  You  may  write  it,  if  you  please,  my  lady,  at  my 
dictation,  for  as  to  reading  and  writing,  they  are 


MARIE-ANTOINE   CARE  ME.  351 

branches  of  my  education  which  were  totally  neg- 
lected." 

The.  lady  remarks,  however,  that  Paris  servants 
can  usually  read  very  well,  and  that  hackmen,  water- 
carriers,  and  porters  may  frequently  be  seen  read- 
ing a  classical  author  while  waiting  for  a  customer. 

A  very  remarkable  case  in  point  is  Marie- An- 
toine  Carenie,  whom  a  French  writer  styles,  "  one 
of  the  princes  of  the  culinary  art."  I  suppose  that 
no  country  in  the  world  but  France  could  produce 
such  a  character.  Of  this,  however,  the  reader  can 
judge  when  I  have  briefly  told  his  story. 

He  was  born  in  a  Paris  garret,  in  1784,  one  of 
a  family  of  fifteen  children,  the  offspring  of  a  poor 
workman.  As  soon  as  he  was  old  enough,  to  ren- 
der  a  little  service,  his  father  placed  him  as  a  gar- 
con  in  a  cheap  and  low  restaurant,  where  he  re- 
ceived nothing  for  his  labor  except  his  food. 

This  was  an  humble  beginning  for  a  "  prince." 
But  he  improved  his  disadvantages  to  such  a  de- 
gree that,  at  the  age  of  twenty,  he  entered  the 
kitchen  of  Talleyrand.  Now  Prince  Talleyrand, 
besides  being  himself  one  of  the  daintiest  men  in 
Europe,  had  to  entertain,  as  minister  of  foreign 
affairs,  the  diplomatic  corps,  and  a  large  number 
of  other  persons  accustomed  from  their  youth  up 
to  artistic  cookery.  Careme  proved  equal  to  the 
situation.  Talleyrand's  dinners  were  renowned 
throughout  Europe  and  America.  But  this  cook 
of  genius,  not  satisfied  with  his  attainments,  took 


352  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

lessons  in  the  art  from  Guipiere,  the  renowned 
chef  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon — he  who  followed 
Murat  into  the  wilds  of  Russia  and  perished  with 
so  many  other  cooks  and  heroes. 

Careme  appears  to  have  succeeded  Guipiere  in 
the  Imperial  kitchen,  but  he  did  not  follow  the 
Emperor  to  Elba.  When  the  allied  kings  cele- 
brated their  triumph  in  Paris  at  a  grand  banquet, 
it  was  Careme  who,  as  the  French  say,  "  executed 
the  repast."  His  brilliant  success  on  this  occasion 
was  trumpeted  over  Europe,  and  after  the  final 
downfall  of  Napoleon  he  was  invited  to  take  charge 
of  the  kitchen  of  the  English  Prince  Regent.  At 
various  times  during  his  career  he  was  cook  to  the 
Emperor  Alexander  of  Russia,  to  the  Emperor  of 
Austria,  to  the  Prince  of  AVurtemberg,  and  to  the 
head  of  the  house  of  Rothschild.  In  the  service  of 
these  illustrious  eaters  he  gained  large  sums  of 
money,  which,  however,  he  was  very  far  from  hoard- 
ing. 

In  the  maturity  of  his  powers  he  devoted  himself 
and  his  fortune  to  historical  investigations  concern- 
ing the  art  of  cookery.  For  several  years  he  was 
to  be  daily  seen  in  the  Imperial  Library,  studying 
the  cookery,  so  renowned,  of  the  ancient  Greeks  and 
Romans,  desiring  especially  to  know  whether  they 
possessed  any  secrets  which  had  been  lost.  His 
conclusion  was,  that  the  dishes  served  upon  the  ta- 
bles of  Lucullus,  Augustus  Caesar,  and  others,  were 
"  utterly  bad  and  atrociously  stupid."    But  he  com- 


MAPJE-ANTOINE   CAREME.  353 

mended  the  decoration  of  their  tables,  the  cnps  and 
vases  of  gold,  the  beautiful  pitchers,  the  chased  sil- 
ver, the  candles  of  white  Spanish  wax,  the  fabrics  of 
silk  whiter  than  the  snow,  and  the  beautiful  flowers 
with  which  their  tables  were  covered.  He  published 
the  results  of  his  labors  in  a  large  octavo  volume, 
illustrated  by  a  hundred  and  twenty-eight  engrav- 
ings. He  continued  his  studious  labors,  and  pub- 
lished at  various  periods  "  Ancient  and  Modern 
Cookery  Compared,"  in  two  volumes,  octavo,  "  The 
Paris  Cook,  or  the  Art  of  Cooking  in  the  Nine- 
teenth Century,"  and  others.  Toward  the  close  of 
his  life,  he  wrote  a  magazine  article  upon  Napo- 
leon's way  of  eating  at  St.  Helena. 

He  dedicated  one  of  his  works  to  his  great  in- 
structor and  master  in  the  art  of  cookery,  Guipiere. 
To  give  the  reader  an  idea  of  his  way  of  thinking 
and  feeling  I  will  translate  a  few  sentences  of  this 
dedication  :  — 

"  Rise,  illustrious  Shade  !  Hear  the  voice  of  the 
man  who  was  your  admirer  and  your  pupil !  Your 
distinguished  talents  brought  upon  you  hatred  and 
persecution.  By  cabal  you  were  obliged  to  leave 
your  beautiful  native  land,  and  go  into  Italy  to 
serve  a  prince  (Murat)  to  whose  enjoyment  you 
had  once  ministered  in  Paris.  You  followed  your 
king  into  Russia.  But  alas,  by  a  deplorable  fatal- 
ity, you  perished  miserably,  your  feet  and  body 
frozen  by  the  frightful  climate  of  the  north.  Ar- 
rived at  Vilna,  your  generous  prince  lavished  gold 

23 


354  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

to  save  you,  but  in  vain.  0  great  Guipi£re,  re- 
ceive the  public  homage  of  a  faithful  disciple.  Re- 
gardless of  those  who  envied  you,  I  wish  to  associ- 
ate your  name  with  my  labors.  I  bequeath  to  your 
memory  my  most  beautiful  work.  It  will  convey 
to  future  ages  a  knowledge  of  the  elegance  and 
splendor  of  the  culinary  art  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury ;  and  if  Vatel  rendered  himself  illustrious  by 
a  point  of  honor,  dear  to  every  man  of  merit,  your 
unhappy  end,  O  Gruipiere,  renders  you  worthy  of 
the  same  homage  !  It  was  that  point  of  honor 
which  made  you  follow  your  prince  into  Russia, 
when  your  gray  hairs  seemed  to  assure  you  a  hap- 
pier destiny  in  Paris.  You  shared  the  sad  fate  of 
our  old  veterans,  and  the  honor  of  our  warriors 
perishing  of  hunger  and  cold." 

All  this,  the  reader  will  admit,  is  very  strange 
and  very  French.  In  the  same  work,  Car  erne 
chronicles  the  names  of  all  the  celebrated  cooks 
who  perished  in  the  retreat  from  Russia.  This 
prince  of  the  kitchen  died  in  1833,  when  he  was 
scarcely  fifty  years  of  age.  His  works  are  still 
well  known  in  France,  and  some  of  them  have 
passed  through  more  than  one  edition.  It  is  an 
odd  contradiction,  that  the  name  of  this  prince  of 
the  kitchen  should  be  the  French  word  for  the 
time  of  fasting.     Careme  means  Lent. 


WONDERFUL  WALKER. 


I  have  here  a  good  story  for  hard  times.  It  is 
of  a  clergyman  and  cotton  spinner  of  the  Church 
of  England,  who,  upon  an  income  of  twenty-four 
pounds  a  year,  lived  very  comfortably  to  the  age  of 
ninety-four  years,  reared  a  family  of  eight  chil- 
dren respectably,  gave  two  of  his  sons  a  University 
education,  and  left  an  estate  worth  two  thousand 
pounds. 

Every  one  will  admit  that  this  was  a  good  deal 
to  do  upon  a  salary  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  dol- 
lars ;  and  some  readers,  who  find  the  winter  hard 
to  get  through,  may  be  interested  to  know  how  he 
did  it.  To  this  day,  though  he  has  been  dead  one 
hundred  years,  he  is  spoken  of  in  the  region  where 
he  lived,  as  Wonderful  Walker.  By  this  epithet, 
also,  he  is  spoken  of  by  the  poet  Wordsworth,  in 
the  "  Excursion  :  "  — 

"  And  him,  the  Wonderful, 
Our  simple  shepherds,  speaking  from  the  heart, 
Deservedly  have  styled." 

He  lived  and  died  in  the  lake  country  of  Eng- 
land, near  the  residence  of  Wordsworth,  who  has 


356  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

embalmed  him  in  verse,  and  described  him  in 
prose.  Robert  Walker,  the  youngest  of  twelve 
children,  the  son  of  a  yeoman  of  small  estate,  was 
bred  a  scholar  because  he  was  of  a  frame  too  del- 
icate, as  his  father  thought,  to  earn  his  livelihood 
by  bodily  labor.  He  struggled  into  a  competent 
knowledge  of  the  classics  and  divinity,  gained  in 
strength  as  he  advanced  towards  manhood,  and  by 
the  time  he  was  ordained  was  as  vigorous  and  alert 
as  most  men  of  his  age. 

After  his  ordination,  he  had  his  choice  of  two 
curacies  of  the  same  revenue,  namely,  five  pounds 
a  year  —  twenty-five  dollars.  One  of  these,  Sea- 
thwaite  by  name,  too  insignificant  a  place  to  figure 
upon  a  map,  or  even  in  the  "  Gazetteer,"  was  sit- 
uated in  his  native  valley,  in  the  church  of  which 
he  had  gone  to  school  in  his  childhood.  He  chose 
Seathwaite,  but  not  for  that  reason.  He  was  in 
love ;  he  wished  to  marry ;  and  this  parish  had  a 
small  parsonage  attached  to  it,  with  a  garden  of 
three  quarters  of  an  acre.  The  person  to  whom  he 
was  engaged  was  a  comely  and  intelligent  domes- 
tic servant  such  as  then  could  frequently  be  found 
in  the  sequestered  parts  of  England.  She  had 
saved,  it  appears,  from  her  wages  the  handsome 
sum  of  forty  pounds.  Thus  provided,  he  married, 
and  entered  upon  his  curacy  in  his  twenty-sixth 
year,  and  set  up  housekeeping  in  his  little  parson- 


age. 


Every  one  knows  what  kind  of  families  poor  cler- 


WONDERFUL    WALKER.  357 

gymen  are  apt  to  have.  Wonderful  Walker  had 
one  of  that  kind.  About  every  two  years,  or  less,  a 
child  arrived  ;  and  heartily  welcome  they  all  were, 
and  deeply  the  parents  mourned  the  loss  of  one 
that  died.  In  the  course  of  a  few  years,  eight 
bouncing  girls  and  boys  filled  his  little  house ;  and 
the  question  recurs  with  force  :  How  did  he  sup- 
port them  all  ?  From  Queen  Anne's  bounty,  and 
other  sources,  his  income  was  increased  to  the  sum 
mentioned  above,  twenty-four  pounds.  That  for  a 
beginning:.     Now  for  the  rest. 

In  the  first  place,  he  was  the  lawyer  of  his  par- 
ish, as  well  as  its  notary,  conveyancer,  appraiser, 
and  arbitrator.  He  drew  the  wills,  contracts,  and 
deeds,  charging  for  such  services  a  moderate  fee, 
which  added  to  his  little  store  of  cash.  His  labors 
of  this  kind,  at  the  beginning  of  the  year,  when 
most  contracts  were  made,  were  often  extremely  se- 
vere, occupying  sometimes  half  the  night,  or  even 
all  night.  Then  he  made  the  most  of  his  garden, 
which  was  tilled  by  his  own  hands,  until  his  chil- 
dren were  old  enough  to  help  him.  Upon  the  moun- 
tains near  by,  having  a  right  of  pasturage,  he  kept 
two  cows  and  some  sheep,  which  supplied  the  fam- 
ily with  all  their  milk  and  butter,  nearly  all  their 
meat,  and  most  of  their  clothes.  He  also  rented 
two  or  three  acres  of  land,  upon  which  he  raised 
various  crops.  In  sheep-shearing  time,  he  turned 
out  and  helped  his  neighbors  shear  their  sheep, 
a  kind   of  work  in  which  he  had   eminent   skill. 


358  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

As  compensation,  each  farmer  thus  assisted  gave 
him  a  fleece.  In  haying  time,  too,  he  and  his  boys 
were  in  the  fields  lending  a  hand,  and  got  some 
good  hay-cocks  for  their  pains. 

Besides  all  this,  he  was  the  school-master  of  the 
parish.  Mr.  Wordsworth  positively  says  that,  dur- 
ing most  of  the  year,  except  when  farm  work  was 
very  pressing,  he  taught  school  eight  hours  a  day 
for  five  days  in  the  week,  and  four  hours  on  Satur- 
day. The  school-room  was  the  church.  The  mas- 
ter's seat  was  inside  the  rails  of  the  altar ;  he  used 
the  communion  table  for  a  desk ;  and  there,  during 
the  whole  day,  while  the  children  were  learning  and 
saying  their  lessons,  he  kept  his  spinning-wheel  in 
motion.  In  the  evening,  when  school  was  over, 
feeling  the  need  of  exercise,  he  changed  the  small 
spinning-wheel  at  which  he  had  sat  all  day  for  a 
large  one,  which  required  the  spinner  to  step  to 
and  fro. 

There  was  absolutely  no  waste  and  no  luxury 
known  in  his  house.  The  only  indulgence  which 
looked  like  luxury  was  that,  on  a  Saturday  after- 
noon, he  would  read  a  newspaper  or  a  magazine. 
The  clothes  of  the  whole  family  were  grown,  spun, 
woven,  and  made  by  themselves.  The  fuel  of  the 
house,  which  was  peat,  was  dug,  dried,  and  carried 
by  themselves.  They  made  their  own  candles. 
Once  a  month  a  sheep  was  selected  from  their  lit- 
tle flock  and  killed  for  the  use  of  the  family,  and 
in  the  fall  a  cow  would  be  salted  and  dried  for  the 


WONDERFUL    WALKER.  359 

winter,  the  hide  being  tanned  for  the  family  shoes. 
No  house  was  more  hospitable,  nor  any  hand  more 
generous,  than  those  of  this  excellent  man.  Old 
parishioners,  who  walked  to  church  from  a  distance 
and  wished  to  remain  for  the  afternoon  service, 
were  always  welcome  to  dinner  at  the  parsonage, 
and  sometimes  these  guests  were  so  numerous  that 
it  took  the  family  half  the  week  to  eat  up  the  cold 
broken  remains.  He  had  something  always  to 
spare  to  make  things  decent  and  becoming.  His 
sister's  pew  in  the  chapel  he  lined  neatly  with 
woolen  cloth  of  his  own  making. 

"It  is  the  only  pew  in  the  chapel  so  distin- 
guished," writes  the  poet,  "  and  I  know  of  no  other 
instance  of  his  conformity  to  the  delicate  accommo- 
dations of  modern  times." 

Nineteen  or  twenty  years  elapsed  before  this  sin- 
gular and  interesting  man  attracted  any  public  no- 
tice. His  parishioners,  indeed,  held  him  in  great 
esteem,  for  he  was  one  of  those  men  who  are  not 
only  virtuous,  but  who  render  virtue  engaging  and 
attractive.  If  they  revered  him  as  a  benevolent,  a 
wise,  and  a  temperate  man,  they  loved  him  as  a 
cheerful,  friendly,  and  genial  soul.  He  was  gay 
and  merry  at  Christmas,  and  his  goodness  was  of  a 
kind  which  allures  while  it  rebukes.  But  beyond 
the  vale  of  Seathwaite,  he  was  unknown  until  the 
year  1754,  when  a  traveler  discovered  him,  and 
published  an  account  of  his  way  of  life. 

"  I  found  him,"  writes  this  traveler,  "  sitting  at 


360  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

the  head  of  a  long  square  table,  dressed  in  a  coarse 
blue  frock,  trimmed  with  black  horn  buttons,  a 
checked  shirt,  a  leathern  strap  about  his  neck  for  a 
stock,  a  coarse  apron,  a  pair  of  great  wooden  soled 
shoes,  plated  with  iron  to  preserve  them,  with  a 
child  upon  his  knee,  eating  his  breakfast.  His  wife 
and  the  remainder  of  his  children  were,  some  of 
them,  employed  in  waiting  upon  each  other,  the 
rest  in  teasing  and  spinning  wool,  at  which  trade  he 
is  a  great  proficient ;  and,  moreover,  when  it  is 
ready  for  sale,  he  will  lay  it  upon  his  back,  sixteen 
or  thirty-two  pounds'  weight,  and  carry  it  on  foot 
to  the  market,  seven  or  eight  miles." 

He  spoke  also  of  his  cheerfulness,  and  the  good 
humor  which  prevailed  in  the  family,  the  simplic- 
ity of  his  doctrine,  and  the  apostolic  fervor  of  his 
preaching ;  for,  it  seems,  he  was  an  excellent 
preacher  as  well.  The  publication  of  this  account 
drew  attention  to  the  extreme  smallness  of  his  cler- 
ical income,  and  the  bishop  offered  to  annex  to 
Seathwaite  an  adjacent  parish,  which  also  yielded 
a  revenue  of  five  pounds  a  year.  By  preaching  at 
one  church  in  the  morning,  and  the  other  in  the 
afternoon,  he  could  serve  both  parishes,  and  draw 
both  stipends.  Wonderful  Walker  declined  the 
bishop's  offer. 

"  The  annexation,"  he  wrote  to  the  bishop,  "  would 
be  apt  to  cause  a  general  discontent  among  the  in- 
habitants of  both  places,  by  either  thinking  them- 
selves slighted,  being  only  served  alternately  or  neg- 


WONDERFUL    WALKER.  361 

lected  in  the  duty,  or  attributing  it  to  covetousness  ; 
all  of  which  occasions  of  murmuring  I  would  will- 
ingly avoid." 

Mr.  Wordsworth,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for 
this  letter,  mentions  that,  in  addition  to  his  other 
gifts  and  graces,  he  had  a  "  beautiful  handwriting." 

This  admirable  man  continued  to  serve  his  little 
parish  for  nearly  sixty-eight  years.  His  children 
grew  up  about  him.  Two  of  his  sons  became  cler- 
gymen of  the  Church  of  England ;  one  learned  the 
trade  of  a  tanner  ;  four  of  his  daughters  were  hap- 
pily married ;  and,  occasionally,  all  the  children 
and  grandchildren,  a  great  company  of  healthy  and 
happy  people,  spent  Christmas  together,  and  went  to 
church,  and  partook  of  the  communion  together, 
this  one  family  filling  the  whole  altar. 

The  good  old  wife  diecl  first.  At  her  funeral  the 
venerable  man,  past  ninety  years  of  age,  had  the 
body  borne  to  the  grave  by  three  of  her  daughters 
and  one  granddaughter.  When  the  corpse  was 
lifted,  he  insisted  upon  lending  a  hand,  and  he  felt 
about  (for  he  was  almost  blind)  until  he  got  hold 
of  a  cloth  that  was  fastened  to  the  coffin ;  and  thus, 
as  one  of  the  bearers  of  the  body,  he  entered  the 
church  where  she  was  to  be  buried. 

The  old  man,  who  had  preached  with  much  vigor 
and  great  clearness  until  then  sensibly  drooped 
after  the  loss  of  his  wife.  His  voice  faltered  as  he 
preached ;  he  kept  looking  at  the  seat  in  which  she 
had  sat,  where  he  had  watched  her  kind  and  beauti- 


362  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

f  ul  face  for  more  than  sixty  years.  He  could  not 
pass  her  grave  without  tears.  But  though  sad  and 
melancholy  when  alone,  he  resumed  his  cheerful- 
ness and  good-humor  when  friends  were  about  him. 
One  night,  in  his  ninety-fourth  year,  he  tottered 
upon  his  daughter's  arm,  as  his  custom  was,  to  the 
door,  to  look  out  for  a  moment  upon  the  sky. 

"  How  clear,"  said  he,  "  the  moon  shines  to- 
night." 

In  the  course  of  that  night  he  passed  peacefully 
away.  At  six  the  next  morning  he  was  found  dead 
upon  the  couch  where  his  daughter  had  left  him. 
Of  all  the  men  of  whom  I  have  ever  read,  this  man, 
I  think,  was  the  most  virtuous  and  the  most  fortu- 
nate. 


SIR  CHRISTOPHER  WREN. 


Of  the  out-of-door  sights  of  London,  none  makes 
upon  the  stranger's  mind  so  lasting  an  impression 
as  huge  St.  Paul's,  the  great  black  dome  of  which 
often  seems  to  hang  over  the  city  poised  and  still, 
like  a  balloon  in  a  calm,  while  the  rest  of  the  edi- 
fice is  buried  out  of  sight  in  the  fog  and  smoke. 
The  visitor  is  continually  coming  in  sight  of  this 
dome,  standing  out  in  the  clearest  outline  when  all 
lower  objects  are  obscure  or  hidden.  Insensibly  he 
forms  a  kind  of  attachment  to  it,  at  the  expression 
of  which  the  hardened  old  Londoner  is  amused; 
for  he  may  have  passed  the  building  twice  a  day 
for  forty  years  without  ever  having  had  the  curios- 
ity to  enter  its  doors,  or  even  to  cast  a  glance  up- 
wards at  its  sublime  proportions. 

It  is  the  verdant  American  who  is  penetrated 
to  the  heart  by  these  august  triumphs  of  human 
skill  and  daring.  It  is  we  who,  on  going  down 
into  the  crypt  of  St.  Paul's,  are  so  deeply  moved 
at  the  inscription  upon  the  tomb  of  the  architect  of 
the  cathedral :  — 

"  Underneath  is  laid  the  builder  of  this  church 


364  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

and  city,  Christopher  Wren,  who  lived  more  than 
ninety  years,  not  for  himself,  but  for  the  public 
good.  Reader,  if  you  seek  his  monument,  look 
around !  " 

The  writer  of  this  inscription,  when  he  used  the 
word  circumspice,  which  we  translate  look  around, 
did  not  intend  probably  to  confine  the  reader's  at- 
tention to  St.  Paul's.  Much  of  the  old  part  of 
London  is  adorned  by  proofs  of  Wren's  skill  and 
taste ;  for  it  was  he  who  rebuilt  most  of  the 
churches  and  other  public  buildings  which  were 
destroyed  by  the  great  fire  of  London  in  1666.  He 
built  or  rebuilt  fifty-five  churches  in  London  alone, 
besides  thirty-six  halls  for  the  guilds  and  mechan- 
ics' societies.  The  royal  palaces  of  Hampton  Court 
and  Kensington  were  chiefly  his  work.  He  was 
the  architect  of  Temple  Bar,  Drury  Lane  Theatre, 
the  Royal  Exchange,  and  the  Monument.  It  was 
he  who  adapted  the  ancient  palace  at  Greenwich  to 
its  present  purpose,  a  retreat  for  old  sailors.  The 
beautifid  city  of  Oxford,  too,  contains  colleges  and 
churches  constructed  or  reconstructed  by  him.  It 
is  doubtful  if  any  other  man  of  his  profession  ever 
did  so  much  work  as  he,  and  certainly  none  ever 
worked  more  faithfully. 

With  all  this,  he  was  a  self-taught  architect. 
He  was  neither  intended  by  his  father  to  pursue 
that  profession,  nor  did  he  ever  receive  instruction 
in  it  from  an  architect.  He  came  of  an  old  family 
of  high  rank  in  the  Church  of  England,  his  father, 


SIR   CHRISTOPHER   WREN.  365 

a  clergyman  richly  provided  witli  benefices,  and  his 
uncle  being  that  famous  Bishop  of  Ely  who  was 
imprisoned  in  the  Tower  eighteen  years  for  his  ad- 
herence to  the  royal  cause  in  the  time  of  the  Com- 
monwealth. 

He  derived  his  love  of  architecture  from  his  fa- 
ther, Dr.  Christopher  Wren,  a  mathematician,  a 
musician,  a  draughtsman,  who  liked  to  employ  his 
leisure  in  repairing  and  decorating  the  churches 
under  his  charge.  Dr.  Wren  had  much  mechan- 
ical skill,  and  devised  some  new  methods  of  support- 
ing the  roofs  of  large  buildings.  He  was  the  ideal 
churchman,  bland,  dignified,  scholarly,  and  ingen- 
ious. 

His  son  Christopher,  born  in  1631  (the  year  af- 
ter Boston  was  founded),  inherited  his  father's  pro- 
pensities, with  more  than  his  father's  talents. 
Like  many  other  children  destined  to  enjoy  ninety 
years  of  happy  life,  he  was  of  such  delicate  health 
as  to  require  constant  attention  from  all  his  family 
to  prolong  his  existence.  As  the  years  went  on, 
he  became  sufficiently  robust,  and  passed  through 
Westminster  school  to  Oxford,  where  he  was  re* 
garded  as  a  prodigy  of  learning  and  ability. 

John  Evelyn,  who  visited  Oxford  when  Wren 
was  a  student  there,  speaks  of  visiting  "  that  mir- 
acle of  a  youth,  Mr.  Christopher  Wren,  nephew  of 
the  Bishop  of  Ely."  He  also  mentions  calling 
upon  one  of  the  professors,  at  whose  house  "that 
prodigious  young  scholar,  Mr.  Christopher  Wren," 


866  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

showed  liini  a  thermometer,  "  a  monstrous  magnet," 
some  dials,  and  a  piece  of  white  marble  stained 
red,  and  many  other  curiosities,  some  of  which 
were  the  young  scholar's  own  work. 

There  never  had  been  such  an  interest  before  in 
science  and  invention.  The  work  of  Lord  Bacon 
in  which  he  explained  to  the  scholars  of  Europe 
the  best  way  of  discovering  truth  (by  experiment, 
comparison,  and  observation)  was  beginning  to  bear 
fruit.  A  number  of  gentlemen  at  Oxford  were 
accustomed  to  meet  once  a  week  at  one  another's 
houses  for  the  purpose  of  making  and  reporting 
experiments,  and  thus  accumulating  the  facts  lead- 
ing to  the  discovery  of  principles.  This  little  so- 
cial club,  of  which  Christopher  Wren  was  a  most 
active  and  zealous  member,  grew  afterwards  into 
the  famous  Royal  Society,  of  which  Sir  Isaac  New- 
ton was  president,  and  to  which  he  first  communi- 
cated his  most  important  discoveries. 

All  subjects  seem  to  have  been  discussed  by  the 
Oxford  club  except  theology  and  politics,  which 
were  becoming  a  little  too  exciting  for  philosophic 
treatment.  Wren  was  in  the  fullest  sympathy 
with  the  new  scientific  spirit,  and  during  all  the 
contention  between  king  and  Parliament  he  and 
his  friends  were  quietly  developing  the  science 
which  was  to  change  the  face  of  the  world,  and 
finally  make  such  wasteful  wars  impossible.  A  mere 
catalogue  of  Christopher  Wren's  conjectures,  exper- 
iments, and  inventions,  made  while  he  was  an  Ox- 


SIR   CHRISTOPHER  WREN.  367 

ford  student,  would  more  than  fill  the  space  I  have 
at  command. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-four  he  was  offered  a  pro- 
fessorship of  astronomy  at  Oxford,  which  he  mod- 
estly declined  as  being  above  his  age,  but  after- 
wards accepted.  His  own  astronomy  was  sadly 
deficient,  for  he  supposed  the  circumference  of  our 
earth  to  be  216,000  miles.  This,  however,  was  be- 
fore Sir  Isaac  Newton  had  published  the  true  as- 
tronomy, or  had  himself  learned  it. 

After  a  most  honorable  career  as  teacher  of  sci- 
ence at  Oxford,  he  received  from  the  restored  king, 
Charles  II.,  the  appointment  of  assistant  to  the 
Surveyor  General  of  Works,  an  office  which  placed 
him  in  charge  of  public  buildings  in  course  of  con- 
struction. It  made  him,  in  due  time,  the  architect- 
general  of  England,  and  it  was  in  that  capacity 
that  he  designed  and  superintended  very  many  of 
the  long  series  of  works  mentioned  above.  There 
never  was  a  more  economical  appointment.  The 
salary  which  he  drew  from  the  king  appears  to 
have  been  two  hundred  pounds  a  year,  a  sum  equal 
perhaps  to  four  thousand  of  our  present  dollars. 
Such  was  the  modest  compensation  of  the  great  ar- 
chitect who  rebuilt  London  after  the  great  fire. 

That  catastrophe  occurred  a  few  years  after  his 
appointment.  The  fire  continued  to  rage  for  nearly 
four  days,  during  which  it  destroyed  eighty-nine 
churches  including  St.  Paul's,  thirteen  thousand 
two  hundred  houses,  and  laid  waste  four  hundred 
streets. 


368  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

Christopher  Wren  was  then  thirty-five  years  of 
age.  He  promptly  exhibited  to  the  king  a  plan 
for  rebuilding  the  city,  which  proposed  the  widen- 
ing and  straightening  of  the  old  streets,  suggested  a 
broad  highway  along  the  bank  of  the  river,  an  am- 
ple space  about  St.  Paul's,  and  many  other  improve- 
ments which  would  have  saved  posterity  a  world  of 
trouble  and  expense.  The  government  of  the  dis- 
solute Charles  was  neither  wise  enough  nor  strong 
enough  to  carry  out  the  scheme,  and  Sir  Christo- 
pher was  obliged  to  content  himself  with  a  sorry 
compromise. 

The  rest  of  his  life  was  spent  in  rebuilding  the 
public  edifices,  his  chief  work  being  the  great  ca- 
thedral. Upon  that  vast  edifice  he  labored  for  thir- 
ty-five years.  When  the  first  stone  of  it  was  laid, 
his  son  Christopher  was  a  year  old.  It  was  that 
son,  a  man  of  thirty-six,  who  placed  the  last  stone 
of  the  lantern  above  the  dome,  in  the  presence  of 
the  architect,  the  master  builder,  and  a  number  of 
masons.  This  was  in  the  year  1710.  Sir  Christo- 
pher lived  thirteen  years  longer,  withdrawn  from 
active  life  in  the  country.  Once  a  year,  however, 
it  was  his  custom  to  visit  the  city,  and  sit  for  a 
while  under  the  dome  of  the  cathedral.  He  died 
peacefully  while  dozing  in  his  arm-chair  after  din- 
ner, in  1723,  aged  ninety-two  years,  having  lived 
one  of  the  most  interesting  and  victorious  lives  ever 
enjoyed  by  a  mortal. 

If  the  people  of  London  are  proud  of  what  was 


SIR   CHRISTOPHER    WREN.  369 

done  by  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  they  lament  per- 
haps still  more  what  he  was  not  permitted  to  do. 
They  are  now  attempting  to  execute  some  of  his 
plans".  Miss  Lucy  Phillimore,  his  biographer, 
says :  — 

"  Wren  laid  before  the  king  and  Parliament  a 
model  of  the  city  as  he  proposed  to  build  it,  with 
full  explanations  of  the  details  of  the  design.  The 
street  leading  up  Ludgate  Hill,  instead  of  being  the 
confined,  winding  approach  to  St.  Paul's  that  it 
now  is,  even  its  crooked  picturesqueness  marred  by 
the  Viaduct  that  cuts  all  the  lines  of  the  cathedral, 
gradually  widened  as  it  approached  St.  Paul's,  and 
divided  itself  into  two  great  streets,  ninety  feet 
wide  at  the  least,  which  ran  on  either  side  of  the 
cathedral,  leaving  a  large  open  space  in  which  it 
stood.  Of  the  two  streets,  one  ran  parallel  with 
the  river  until  it  reached  the  Tower,  and  the  other 
led  to  the  Exchange,  which  Wren  meant  to  be  the 
centre  of  the  city,  standing  in  a  great  piazza,  to 
which  ten  streets  each  sixty  feet  wide  converged, 
and  around  which  were  placed  the  Post-Office,  the 
Mint,  the  Excise  Office,  the  Goldsmiths'  Hall,  and 
the  Insurance,  forming  the  outside  of  the  piazza. 
The  smallest  streets  were  to  be  thirt}?-  feet  wide, '  ex- 
cluding all  narrow,  dark  alleys  without  thorough- 
fares, and  courts.' 

"  The  churches  were  to  occupy  commanding  posi- 
tions along  the  principal  thoroughfares,  and  to  be 
8  designed  according  to  the  best  forms  for  capacity 

24 


370  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

and  hearing,  adorned  with  useful  porticoes  and 
lofty  ornamental  towers  and  steeples  in  the  greater 
parishes.  All  church  yards,  gardens,  and  unneces- 
sary vacuities,  and  all  trades  that  use  great  fires  or 
yield  noisome  smells  to  be  placed  out  of  town.' 

"  He  intended  that  the  church  yards  should  be 
carefully  planted  and  adorned,  and  be  a  sort  of 
girdle  round  the  town,  wishing  them  to  be  an  orna- 
ment to  the  city,  and  also  a  check  upon  its  growth. 
To  burials  within  the  walls  of  the  town  he  strongly 
objected,  and  the  experience  derived  from  the  year 
of  the  plague  confirmed  his  judgment.  No  gar- 
dens or  squares  are  mentioned  in  the  plan,  for  he 
had  provided,  as  he  thought,  sufficiently  for  the 
healthiness  of  the  town  by  his  wide  streets  and  nu- 
merous open  spaces  for  markets.  Gardening  in 
towns  was  an  art  little  considered  in  his  day,  and 
contemporary  descriptions  show  us  that  ;  vacuities  ' 
were  speedily  filled  with  heaps  of  dust  and  refuse. 

"The  London  bank  of  the  Thames  was  to  be 
lined  with  a  broad  quay  along  which  the  halls  of  the 
city  companies  were  to  be  built,  with  suitable  ware- 
houses in  between  for  the  merchants'  to  vary  the  ef- 
fect of  the  edifices.  The  little  stream  whose  name 
survives  in  Fleet  Street  was  to  be  brought  to  light, 
cleansed,  and  made  serviceable  as  a  canal  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  feet  wide,  running  much  in  the  line 
of  the  present  Holborn  Viaduct." 

These  were  the  wise  and  large  thoughts  of  a 
great   citizen   for   the   metropolis   of   his  country. 


SIR   CHRISTOPHER  WREN.  371 

But  the  king  was  Charles  II. !  Our  race  produces 
good  citizens  in  great  numbers,  and  great  citizens 
not  a  few,  but  the  supreme  difficulty  of  civiliza- 
tion is  to  get  a  few  such  where  they  can  direct  and 
control. 


SIR  JOHN  RENNIE, 

ENGINEER. 


One  of  the  most  striking  city  scenes  in  the  world 
is  the  view  of  London  as  you  approach  London 
Bridge  in  one  of  the  small,  low-decked  steamers 
which  ply  upon  the  Thames.  London  stands  where 
navigation  for  sea-going  vessels  ceases  on  this  fa- 
mous stream,  which  is  crossed  at  London,  within 
a  stretch  of  three  or  four  miles,  by  about  fifteen 
bridges,  of  which  seven  or  eight  can  be  seen  at  one 
view  under  the  middle  arch  of  London  Bridge. 

Over  all  these  bridges  there  is  a  ceaseless  tide  of 
human  life,  and  in  the  river  below,  besides  long 
lines  of  ships  at  anchor  and  unloading,  there  are  as 
many  steam-vessels,  barges,  skiffs,  and  wherries  as 
can  find  safe  passage.  A  scene  more  animated, 
picturesque,  and  grand  is  nowhere  else  presented, 
especially  when  the  great  black  dome  of  St.  Paul's 
is  visible,  hanging  over  it,  appearing  to  be  sus- 
pended in  the  foggy  atmosphere  like  a  black  bal- 
loon, the  cathedral  itself  being  invisible.    ■ 

Three  of  these  bridges  were  built  by  the  engi- 
neers, father  and  son,  whose  name  appears  at  the 


SIR  JOHN  RENNIE.  373 

head  of  this  article,  and  those  three  are  among  the 
most  wonderful  structures  of  their  kind.  One  of 
these  is  London  Bridge  ;  another  is  called  South- 
wark,  and  the  third,  Waterloo.  The  time  may- 
come  when  the  man  who  builds  bridges  will  be  as 
celebrated  as  the  man  who  batters  them  down  with 
cannon  ;  but,  at  present,  for  one  person  who  knows 
the  name  of  Sir  John  Rennie  there  are  a  thou- 
sand who  are  familiar  with  Wellington  and  Water- 
loo. 

He  had,  however,  a  pedigree  longer  than  that  of 
some  lords.  His  father  was  a  very  great  engineer 
before  him,  and  that  father  acquired  his  training 
in  practical  mechanics  under  a  Scotch  firm  of  ma- 
chinists and  niiil-wrights  which  dates  back  to  the 
reign  of  Charles  the  Second.  It  is  to  be  particu- 
larly noted  that  both  John  Rennie,  the  elder,  and 
Sir  John,  his  son,  derived  an  important  part  of 
their  education  in  the  work-shop  and  model-room. 
Both  of  them,  indeed,  had  an  ideal  education  ;  for 
they  enjoyed  the  best  theoretical  instruction  which 
their  age  and  country  could  furnish,  and  the  best 
practical  training  also.  Theory  and  practice  went 
hand  in  hand.  While  the  intellect  was  nourished, 
the  body  was  developed,  the  hand  acquired  skill, 
and  the  eyesight,  certainty.  It  is  impossible  to  im- 
agine a  better  education  for  a  young  man  than  for 
him  to  receive  instruction  at  Edinburgh  Univer- 
sity under  the  illustrious  Professor  Black,  and  af- 
terwards a  training  in  practical  mechanics  under 


374  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

Andrew  Meikle,  one  of  the  best  mechanics  then 
living.  This  was  the  fortunate  lot  of  Rennie's 
father,  who  wisely  determined  that  his  son  should 
have  the  same  advantage. 

When  the  boy  had  passed  through  the  prepara- 
tory schools,  the  question  arose,  whether  he  should 
be  sent  to  one  of  the  universities,  or  should  go  at 
once  into  the  workshop.  His  father  frequently 
said  that  the  real  foundation  of  civil  engineering 
is  mechanics,  theoretical  and  practical.  He  did 
not  believe  that  a  young  man  could  beqome  an  en- 
gineer by  sitting  in  a  class-room  and  hearing  lec- 
tures ;  but  that  he  must  be  placed  in  contact  with 
realities,  with  materials,  with  tools,  with  men,  with 
difficulties,  make  mistakes,  achieve  successes,  and 
thus  acquire  the  blended  boldness  and  caution 
which  mark  the  great  men  in  this  profession.  It  is 
a  fact  that  the  greatest  engineers  of  the  past  cen- 
tury, whatever  else  they  may  have  had  or  lacked, 
were  thoroughly  versed  in  practical  mechanics. 
Smeaton,  Telford,  Arkwright,  Hargreaves,  George 
Stephenson,  Rennie,  were  all  men  who,  as  they  used 
to  say,  had  "  an  ounce  of  theory  to  a  pound  of  prac- 
tice." 

Young  Rennie  worked  eight  hours  a  day  in  the 
practical  part  of  his  profession,  and  spent  four  in 
the  acquisition  of  science  and  the  modern  lan- 
guages, aided  in  both  by  the  first  men  in  London 
in  their  branches.  Four  or  five  years  of  this  train- 
ing gave  him,  as  he  says  in  his  autobiography,  the 


SIR  JOHN  RENNIE.  375 

"  rudiments  '  of  his  profession.  His  father  next 
determined  to  give  him  some  experience  in  bearing 
responsibility,  and  placed  him  as  an  assistant  to 
the  resident-engineer  of  Waterloo  Bridge,  then  in 
course  of  construction.  He  was  but  nineteen  years 
of  age ;  but,  being  the  son  of  the  head  of  the  firm, 
he  was  naturally  deferred  to  and  prepared  to  take 
the  lead.  Soon  after,  the  Southwark  Bridge  was 
begun,  which  the  young  man  superintended  daily 
at  every  stage  of  its  construction. 

English  engineers  regard  this  bridge  as  the  ne 
plus  ultra  of  bridge-building.  A  recent  writer 
speaks  of  it  as  "  confessedly  unrivaled  as  regards 
its  colossal  proportions,  its  architectural  effect,  or 
the  general  simplicity  and  massive  character  of  its 
details."  It  crosses  the  river  by  three  arches,  of 
which  the  central  one  has  a  span  of  two  hundred 
and  forty  feet,  and  it  is  built  at  a  place  where  the 
river  at  high  tide  is  thirty-six  feet  deep.  The  cost 
of  this  bridge  was  four  millions  of  dollars,  and  it  re- 
quired five  years  to  build  it.  The  bridge  is  of  iron, 
and  contains  a  great  many  devices  originated  by 
the  young  engineer,  and  sanctioned  by  his  father. 
It  was  he  also  who  first,  in  recent  times,  learned 
how  to  transport  masses  of  stone  of  twenty-five  tons 
weight,  used  for  the  foundation  of  bridges. 

Having  thus  become  an  accomplished  engineer, 
his  wise  old  father  sent  him  on  a  long  tour,  which 
lasted  more  than  two  years,  in  the  course  of  which 
he  inspected  all  the  great  works,  both  of  the  an- 


376  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

cients  and  moderns,  in  Europe,  and  the  more  acces- 
sible parts  of  Africa  and  Asia.  Returning  home, 
the  death  of  his  father  suddenly  placed  upon  his 
shoulders  the  most  extensive  and  difficult  engineer- 
ino-  business  in  Great  Britain.  But  with  such  a 
training,  under  such  a  father,  and  inheriting  so 
many  traditional  methods,  he  proved  equal  to  the 
position,  continued  the  great  works  begun  by  his 
father,  and  carried  them  on  to  successful  comple- 
tion. 

His  father  had  already  convinced  the  govern- 
ment that  the  old  London  Bridge  could  never  be 
made  sufficient  for  the  traffic,  or  unobstructive  to 
the  navigation.  A  bridge  has  existed  at  this  spot 
since  the  year  928,  and  some  of  the  timbers  of  the 
original  structure  were  still  sound  in  1824,  when 
work  upon  the  new  bridge  was  begun. 

Thirty  firms  competed  for  the  contract  for  build- 
ing the  new  London  Bridge,  but  it  was  awarded  to 
the  Kennies,  under  whose  superintendence  it  was 
built.  The  bridge  is  nine  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
feet  in  length,  and  has  five  arches.  In  this  structure 
although  utility  was  the  first  consideration,  there  in 
an  elegant  solidity  of  design  which  makes  it  pleas- 
ing and  impressive  in  the  highest  degree.  The 
rapid  stream  is  as  little  obstructed  as  the  circum- 
stances admitted,  and  there  does  not  appear  to  be 
in  the  bridge  an  atom  of  superfluous  material. 
London  Bridge  is,  I  suppose,  the  most  crowded 
thoroughfare  in  the  world.     Twenty-five  thousand 


SIR  JOHN  RENNIE.  377 

vehicles  cross  it  daily,  as  well  as  countlesss  niulti- 
tucles  of  foot-passengers.  So  great  is  the  throng, 
that  there  is  a  project  now  on  foot  to  widen  it.  In 
1831,  when  it  was  formally  opened  by  King  TTil- 
liani  IV.,  the  great  engineer  was  knighted,  and  he 
was  in  consequence  ever  after  called  Sir  John  Ren- 
nie. 

During  the  period  of  railroad  building,  Sir  John 
Rennie  constructed  a  great  many  remarkable  works, 
particularly  in  Portugal  and  Sweden.  TVe  have 
lately  heard  much  of  the  disappointment  of  young 
engineers  whom  the  cessation  in  the  construction  of 
railroads  has  thrown  out  of  business.  Perhaps  no 
profession  suffered  more  from  the  dull  times  than 
this.  Sir  John  Rennie  explains  the  matter  in  his 
autobiography  :  — 

"In  1844,"  he  tells  us,  "the  demand  for  engi- 
neering surveyors  and  assistants  was  very  great. 
Engineering  was  considered  to  be  the  only  profes- 
sion where  immense  wealth  and  fame  were  to  be 
acquired,  and  consequently  everybody  became  engi- 
neers. It  was  not  the  question  whether  they  were 
educated  for  it,  or  competent  to  undertake  it,  but 
simply  whether  any  person  chose  to  dub  himself 
engineer  ;  hence  lawyers'  clerks,  surgeons'  appren- 
tices, merchants,  tradesmen,  officers  in  the  army 
and  navy,  private  gentlemen,  left  their  professions 
and  became  engineers.  The  consequence  was  that 
innumerable  blunders  were  made  and  vast  sums  of 
money  were  recklessly  expended." 


378  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

It  was  much  the  same  in  the  United  States  ;  and 
hence  a  good  many  of  these  gentlemen  have  been 
obliged  to  find  their  way  back  to  th.Q  homelier  oc- 
cupations which  they  rashly  abandoned.  But  in 
our  modern  world  a  thoroughly  trainedr  engineer, 
like  Sir  John  Rennie,  will  always  be  in  request ; 
for  man's  conquest  of  the  earth  is  still  most  incom- 
plete ;  and  I  do  not  doubt  that  the  next  century  will 
far  outdo  this  in  the  magnitude  of  its  engineer- 
ing works,  and  in  the  external  changes  wrought  by 
the  happy  union  of  theory  and  practice  in  such  men 
as  Telford,  Stephenson,  and  Rennie. 

Sir  John  Rennie  spent  the  last  years  of  his  life 
in  writing  his  Memoirs,  a  most  interesting  and 
useful  work,  recently  published  in  London,  which, 
I  hope,  will  be  republished  here.  It  is  just  the 
book  for  a  young  fellow  who  has  an  ambition  to 
gain  honor  by  serving  mankind  in  a  skillful  and 
manly  way.  Sir  John  Rennie,  like  his  father  be- 
fore him,  and  like  all  other  great  masters  of  men, 
was  constantly  attentive  to  the  interests  and  feel- 
ings of  those  who  assisted  him.  He  was  a  wise  and 
considerate  employer ;  and  the  consequence  was, 
that  he  was  generally  served  with  loyal  and  affec- 
tionate fidelity.  He  died  in  1874,  aged  eighty 
years. 


SIR  MOSES  MONTEFIORE. 


"We  still  deal  strangely  with  the  Jews.  While 
at  one  end  of  Europe  an  Israelite  scarcely  dares 
show  himself  in  the  streets  for  fear  of  being  stoned 
and  abused,  in  other  countries  of  the  same  conti- 
nent we  see  them  prime  ministers,  popular  authors, 
favorite  composers  of  music,  capitalists,  philanthro- 
pists, to  whom  whole  nations  pay  homage. 

Sir  Moses  Montefiore,  though  an  English  bar- 
onet, is  an  Israelite  of  the  Israelites,  connected  by 
marriage  and  business  with  the  Rothschilds,  and  a 
sharer  in  their  wonderful  accumulations  of  money. 
His  hundredth  birthday  was  celebrated  in  1883  at 
his  country-house  on  the  English  coast,  and  cele- 
brated in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the  festival  one  of 
the  most  interesting  events  of  the  year.  The  Eng- 
lish papers  tell  us  that  nearly  a  hundred  telegrams 
of  congratulation  and  benediction  reached  the  aged 
man  in  the  course  of  the  day,  from  America,  Af- 
rica, Asia,  and  all  parts  of  Europe,  from  Chris- 
tians, Jews,  Mahomedans,  and  men  of  the  world. 
The  telegraph  offices,  we  are  told,  were  clogged 
during  the  morning  with  these  messages,  some  of 


380  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

which  were  of  great  length,  in  foreign  languages 
and  in  strange  alphabets,  such  as  the  Arabic  and 
Hebrew.  Friends  in  England  sent  him  addresses 
in  the    English   manner,    several    of   which  were 

O  J 

beautifully  written  upon  parchment  and  superbly 
mounted.  The  railroad  passing  near  his  house 
conveyed  to  him  by  every  train  during  the  day 
presents  of  rare  fruit  and  beautiful  flowers.  The 
Jews  in  Spain  and  Portugal  forwarded  presents  of 
the  cakes  prepared  by  orthodox  Jews  for  the  relig- 
ious festival  which  occurred  on  his  birthday.  In- 
deed, there  has  seldom  been  in  Europe  such  a 
widespread  and  cordial  recognition  of  the  birth- 
day of  any  private  citizen. 

Doubtless,  the  remarkable  longevity  of  Sir 
Moses  had  something  to  do  with  emphasizing  the 
celebration.  Great  wealth,  too,  attracts  the  regard 
of  mankind.  But  there  are  many  rich  old  Jews  in 
the  world  whose  birthday  excites  no  enthusiasm. 
The  briefest  review  of  the  long  life  of  Sir  Moses 
Montefiore  will  sufficiently  explain  the  almost  uni- 
versal recognition  of  the  recent  anniversary. 

He  was  born  as  long  ago  as  1784,  the  second 
year  of  American  independence,  when  William  Pitt 
was  prime  minister  of  England.  He  was  five  years 
old  when  the  Bastille  was  stormed,  and  thirty- 
one  when  the  battle  of  Waterloo  was  fought.  He 
was  in  middle  life  before  England  had  become 
wise  enough  to  make  Jew  and  Christian  equal  be- 
fore the  law,  and  thus  attract  to  her  shores  one  of 


.      SIR  MOSES  MOXTEFIORE.  381 

the  most  gifted  and  one  of  the  most  virtuous  of 
races. 

The  father  of  Sir  Moses  lived  and  died  in  one 
of  the  narrow  old  streets  near  the  centre  of  London 
called  Philpot  Lane,  where  he  became  the  father 
of  an  old-fashioned  family  of  seventeen  children. 
This  prolific  parent  was  a  man  of  no  great  wealth, 
and  consequently  his  eldest  son,  Moses,  left  school 
at  an  early  age,  and  was  apprenticed  to  a  London 
firm  of  provision  dealers.  He  was  a  singularly 
handsome  young  man,  of  agreeable  manners  and 
most  engaging  disjmsition,  circumstances  which  led 
to  his  entering  the  Stock  Exchange.  This  was  at 
a  time  when  only  twelve  Jewish  brokers  were  al- 
lowed to  carry  on  business  in  London,  and  he  was 
one  of  the  twelve. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-eight  he  had  fully  entered 
upon  his  career,  a  broker  and  a  married  man,  his 
wife  the  daughter  of  Levy  Cohen,  a  rich  and 
highly  cultivated  Jewish  merchant.  His  wife's 
sister  had  married  N.  M.  Rothschild,  and  one  of 
his  brothers  married  Rothschild's  sister.  United 
thus  by  marriage  to  the  great  banker,  he  became 
also  his  partner  in  business,  and  this  at  a  time 
when  the  gains  of  the  Rothschilds  were  greatest 
and  most  rajrid. 

Most  readers  remember  how  the  Rothschilds 
made  their  prodigious  profits  during  the  last  years 
of  Bonaparte's  reign.  They  had  a  pigeon  express 
at  Dover,  by  means  of   which   they  obtained  the 


382  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

first  correct  news  from  the  continent.  During  the 
"  Hundred  Days,"  for  example,  such  a  panic  pre- 
vailed in  England  that  government  bonds  were 
greatly  depressed.  The  first  rumors  from  Water- 
loo were  of  defeat  and  disaster,  which  again  re- 
duced consols  to  a  panic  price.  The  Rothschilds, 
notified  of  the  victory  a  few  hours  sooner  than 
the  government  itself,  bought  largely  of  securities 
which,  in  twenty-four  hours,  almost  doubled  in 
value.  Moses  Montefiore,  sharing  in  these  trans- 
actions, found  himself  at  forty-five  a  millionaire. 

Instead  of  slaving  away  in  business  to  the  end 
of  his  life,  adding  million  to  million,  with  the  risk 
of  losing  all  at  last,  he  took  the  wise  resolution  of 
retiring  from  business  and  devoting  the  rest  of  his 
life  to  works  of  philanthropy. 

When  Queen  Victoria  came  to  the  throne  in 
1837,  Moses  Montefiore  was  sheriff  of  London. 
The  queen  had  lived  near  his  country-house,  and 
had  often  as  a  little  girl  strolled  about  his  park. 
She  now  enjoyed  the  satisfaction  of  conferring 
upon  her  neighbor  the  honor  of  knighthood,  and  a 
few  years  later  she  made  him  a  baronet.  Thus  he 
became  Sir  Moses,  which  has  an  odd  sound  to  us, 
but  which  in  England  seems  natural  enough. 

During  the  last  fifty  years  Sir  Moses  has  been, 
as  it  were,  a  professional  philanthropist.  Every 
good  cause  has  shared  his  bounty,  but  he  has  been 
most  generous  to  poor  members  of  his  own  race 
and  religion.     He  has  visited  seven  times  the  Holy 


SIR  MOSES  MONTEFIORE.  383 

Land,  where  the  Jews  have  been  for  ages  impover- 
ished and  degraded.  He  has  directed  his  particu- 
lar attention  to  improving  the  agriculture  of  Pales- 
tine, once  so  fertile  and  productive,  and  inducing 
the  Jews  to  return  to  the  cultivation  of  the  soil. 
In  that  country  he  himself  caused  to  be  planted  an 
immense  garden,  in  which  there  are  nine  hundred 
fruit  trees,  made  productive  by  irrigation.  He 
has  promoted  the  system  of  irrigation  by  building 
aqueducts,  digging  wells,  and  providing  improved 
apparatus.  He  has  also  endowed  hospitals  and 
almshouses  in  that  country. 

In  whatever  part  of  the  world,  during  the  last 
fifty  years,  the  Jews  have  been  persecuted  or  dis- 
tressed, he  has  put  forth  the  most  efficient  exer- 
tions for  their  relief,  often  going  himself  to  distant 
countries  to  convey  the  requisite  assistance.  When 
he  was  ninety-one  years  of  age  he  went  to  Palestine 
upon  an  errand  of  benevolence.  He  has  pleaded 
the  cause  of  his  persecuted  brethren  before  the 
Emperor  of  Russia,  and  pleaded  it  with  success. 
To  all  that  part  of  the  world  known  to  us  chiefly 
through  the  Jews  he  has  been  a  constant  and  most 
munificent  benefactor  during  the  last  half  century, 
while  never  turning  a  deaf  ear  to  the  cry  of  want 
nearer  home. 

In  October  he  completes  his  hundredth  year. 
At  present  (January,  1884),  he  reads  without  spec- 
tacles, hears  well,  stands  nearly  erect,  although  six 
feet  three  in  height,  and  has  nothing  of  the  somno- 


384  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

lence  of  old  age.  He  drives  out  every  day,  gets  up 
at  eleven,  and  goes  to  bed  at  nine.  His  diet  is 
chiefly  milk  and  old  port  wine,  with  occasionally 
a  little  soup  or  bread  and  butter.  He  still  enjoys 
the  delights  of  beneficence,  which  are  among  the 
keenest  known  to  mortals,  and  pleases  himself  this 
year  by  giving  checks  of  ninety-nine  pounds  to  be- 
nevolent objects,  a  pound  for  each  year  that  he  has 
had  the  happiness  of  living. 


MARQUIS   OF  WORCESTER, 

INVENTOR  OF  THE   STEAM-ENGINE. 


In  the  English  county  of  Monmouthshire,  near 
Wales,  a  region  of  coal  mines  and  iron  works,  there 
are  the  ruins  of  Raglan  Castle,  about  a  mile  from 
a  village  of  the  same  name.  To  these  ruins  let 
pilgrims  repair  who  delight  to  visit  places  where 
great  things  began ;  for  here  once  dwelt  the  Mar- 
quis of  Worcester,  who  first  made  steam  work  for 
men.  The  same  family  still -owns  the  site;  as  in- 
deed it  does  the  greater  part  of  the  county ;  the 
head  of  the  family  being  now  styled  the  Duke  of 
Beaufort.  The  late  Lord  Raglan,  commander  of 
the  English  forces  in  the  Crimea,  belonged  to  this 
house,  and  showed  excellent  taste  in  selecting  for 
his  title  a  name  so  interesting.  Perhaps,  however, 
he  never  thought  of  the  old  tower  of  Raglan  Castle, 
which  is  still  marked  and  indented  where  the  sec- 
ond Marquis  of  Worcester  set  up  his  steam-engine 
two  hundred  and  twenty  years  ago.  Very  likely  he 
had  in  mind  the  time  when  the  first  marquis  held 
the  castle  for  Charles  I.  against  the  Roundheads, 

and  baffled  them  for  two  months,  though  he  was 

25 


386  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

then  eighty-five  years  of  age.  It  was  the  son  of 
that  valiant  and  tough  old  warrior  who  put  steam 
into  harness,  and  defaced  his  ancestral  tower  with 
a  ponderous  and  imperfect  engine. 

For  many  centuries  before  his  time  something 
had  been  known  of  the  power  of  steam  ;  and  the 
Egyptians,  a  century  or  more  before  Christ,  had 
even  made  certain  steam  toys,  which  we  find  de- 
scribed in  a  manuscript  written  about  120  B.  c, 
at  Alexandria,  by  a  learned  compiler  and  inventor 
named  Hero.  One  of  these  was  in  the  form  of  a 
man  pouring  from  a  cup  a  libation  to  the  gods. 
The  figure  stood  upon  an  altar,  and  it  was  con- 
nected by  a  pipe  with  a  kettle  of  water  underneath. 
On  lighting  a  fire  under  the  kettle,  the  water  was 
forced  up  through  the  figure,  and  flowed  out  of  the 
cup  upon  the  altar.  Another  toy  was  a  revolving 
copper  globe,  which  was  kept  in  motion  by  the  es- 
cape of  steam  from  two  little  pipes  bent  in  the 
same  direction.  Of  this  contrivance  the  French 
Professor  Arago  once  wrote :  — 

"  This  was,  beyond  doubt,  a  machine  in  which 
steam  engendered  motion,  and  could  produce  me- 
chanical effects.  It  was  a  veritable  steam-engine  ! 
Let  us  hasten,  however,  to  add  that  it  bears  no  re- 
semblance, either  by  its  form  or  in  mode  of  action, 
to  steam-engines  now  in  use." 

Other  steam  devices  are  described  by  Hero.  By 
one  a  horn  was  blown,  and  by  another  figures  were 
made   to   dance  upon  an  altar.      But  there  is  no 


MARQUIS   OF  WORCESTER.  387 

trace  in  the  ancient  world  of  the  application  of 
steam  to  an  important  useful  purpose.  Professor 
Thurston  of  Hoboken,  in  his  excellent  work  upon 
the  "  History  of  the  Steam-Engine, "  has  gleaned 
from  the  literature  of  the  last  seven  hundred  years 
several  interesting  allusions  to  the  nature  and 
power  of  steam.  In  1125  there  was,  it  appears,  at 
Rheims  in  France,  some  sort  of  contrivance  for 
blowing  a  church  organ  by  the  aid  of  steam.  There 
is  an  allusion,  also,  in  a  French  sermon  of  1571,  to 
the  awful  power  in  volcanic  eruptions  of  a  small 
quantity  of  confined  steam.  There  are  traces  of 
steam  being  made  to  turn  a  spit  upon  which  meat 
was  roasted.  An  early  French  writer  mentions  the 
experiment  of  exploding  a  bomb-shell  nearly  filled 
with  water  by  putting  it  into  a  fire.  In  1630  King 
Charles  the  First  of  England  granted  to  David 
Ramseye  a  patent  for  nine  different  contrivances, 
among  which  were  the  following  :  — 

"  To  raise  water  from  low  pits  by  fire.  To  make 
any  sort  of  mills  to  go  on  standing  waters  by  contin- 
ual motion  without  help  of  wind,  water,  or  horse. 
To  make  boats,  ships,  and  barges  to  go  against 
strong  wind  and  tide.  To  raise  water  from  mines 
and  coal  pits  by  a  way  never  yet  in  use." 

This  was  in  1630,  which  was  about  the  date  of 
the  Marquis  of  Worcester's  engine.  It  is  possible, 
however,  that  these  devices  existed  only  in  the  im- 
agination of  the  inventor.  The  marquis  was  then 
twenty-nine  years  of  age,  and  as  he  was  curious  in 


388  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

matters  of  science,  it  is  highly  probable  that  he  was 
acquainted  with  this  patent,  and  may  have  con- 
versed with  the  inventor. 

It  is  strange  how  little  we  know  of  a  man  so  im- 
portant as  the  Marquis  of  Worcester  in  our  mod- 
ern industrial  development.  I  believe  that  not  one 
Of  the  histories  of  England  mentions  him,  and 
scarcely  anything  is  known  of  the  circumstances 
that  led  to  his  experimenting  with  steam.  Living 
in  a  county  of  coal  and  iron  mines,  and  his  own 
property  consisting  very  much  in  coal  lands,  his  at- 
tention must  of  necessity  have  been  called  to  the 
difficulties  experienced  by  the  miners  in  pumping 
the  water  from  the  deep  mines.  There  were  mines 
which  employed  as  many  as  five  hundred  horses  in 
pumping  out  the  water,  and  it  was  a  thing  of  fre- 
quent occurrence  for  a  productive  mine  to  be  aban- 
doned because  the  whole  revenue  was  absorbed  in 
clearing  it  of  water.  This  inventor  was  perhaps 
the  man  in  England  who  had  the  greatest  interest 
in  the  contrivance  to  which  in  early  life  he  turned 
his  mind. 

He  was  born  in  the  year  1601,  and  sprung  from 
a  family  whose  title  of  nobility  dated  back  to  the 
fourteenth  century.  He  is  described  by  his  Eng- 
lish biographer  as  a  learned,  thoughtful,  and  stu- 
dious Roman  Catholic ;  as  public  -  spirited  and 
humane ;  as  a  mechanic,  patient,  skillful,  full  of 
resources,  and  quick  to  comprehend.  He  inherited 
a  great  estate,  not  perhaps  so  very  productive  in 


MARQUIS  OF  WORCESTER.  389 

money,  but  of  enormous  intrinsic  value.  There  is 
reason  to  believe  that  he  began  to  experiment  with 
steam  soon  after  he  came  of  age.  He  describes 
one  of  his  experiments,  probably  of  early  date :  — 
"  I  have  taken  a  piece  of  a  whole  cannon, 
whereof  the  end  was  burst,  and  filled  it  with  water 
three  quarters  full,  stopping  and  screwing  up  the 
broken  end,  as  also  the  touch-hole,  and  making  a 
constant  fire  under  it.  Within  twenty-four  hours 
it  burst,  and  made  a  great  crack." 

That  the  engine  which  he  constructed  was  de- 
signed to  pump  water  is  shown  by  the  very  name 
which  he  gave  it,  —  "  the  water-commanding  en- 
gine," —  and,  indeed,  it  was  never  used  for  any 
other  purpose.  The  plan  of  it  was  very  simple, 
and,  without  improvements,  it  could  have  answered 
its  purposes  but  imperfectly.  It  consisted  of  two 
vessels  from  which  the  air  was  driven  alternately 
by  the  condensation  of  steam  within  them,  and  into 
the  vacuum  thus  created  the  water  rushed  from 
the  bottom  of  the  mine.  He  probably  had  his  first 
machine  erected  before  1630,  when  he  was  still  a 
young  man,  and  he  spent  his  life  in  endeavors  to 
bring  his  invention  into  use.  In  doing  this  he 
expended  so  large  a  portion  of  his  fortune,  and  ex- 
cited so  much  ridicule,  that  he  died  comparatively 
poor  and  friendless.  I  think  it  probable,  however, 
that  his  poverty  was  due  rather  to  the  civil  wars, 
in  which  his  heroic  old  father  and  himself  were  so 
unfortunate  as  to  be  on  the  losing  side.     He  at- 


890  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

tempted  to  form  a  company  for  the  introduction  of 
his  machine,  and  when  he  died  without  having  suc- 
ceeded in  this,  his  widow  still  persisted  in  the  same 
object,  though  without  success.  He  did,  however, 
make  several  steam-engines  besides  the  one  at  Rag- 
lan Castle ;  engines  which  did  actually  answer  the 
purpose  of  raising  water  from  considerable  depths 
in  a  continuous  stream.  He  also  erected  near 
London  a  steam  fountain,  which  he  describes. 

During  the  next  century  several  important  im- 
provements were  made  in  the  steam-engine,  but 
without  rendering  it  anything  like  the  useful  agent 
which  we  now  possess.  When  James  Watt  began 
to  experiment,  about  the  year  1760,  in  his  little 
shop  near  the  Glasgow  University,  the  steam-engine 
was  still  used  only  for  pumping  water,  and  he  soon 
discovered  that  it  wasted  three  fourths  of  the  steam. 
He  once  related  to  a  friend  how  the  idea  of  his 
great  improvement,  that  of  saving  the  waste  by  a 
condenser,  occurred  to  his  mind.  He  was  then  a 
poor  mechanic  living  upon  fourteen  shillings  a 
week. 

"  I  had  gone  to  take  a  walk,"  he  said,  "  on  a  fine 
Sabbath  afternoon.  I  had  entered  the  Green  by 
the  gate  at  the  foot  of  Charlotte  Street,  and  had 
passed  the  old  washing-house.  I  was  thinking  upon 
the  engine  at  the  time,  and  had  gone  as  far  as  the 
herd's  house,  when  the  idea  came  into  my  mind 
that,  as  steam  was  an  elastic  body,  it  woidd  rush 
into  a  vacuum,  and,  if  a  communication  were  made 


MARQUIS  OF  WORCESTER.  391 

between  the  cylinder  and  an  exhausted  vessel,  it 
would  rush  into  it,  and  might  be  there  condensed 
without  cooling  the  cylinder." 

He  had  found  it !  Before  he  had  crossed  the 
Green,  he  added,  "  the  whole  thing  was  arranged 
in  my  mind."  Since  that  memorable  day  the  in- 
vention has  been  ever  growing  ;  for,  as  Professor 
Thurston  well  remarks :  "  Great  inventions  are 
never  the  work  of  any  one  mind."  From  Hero  to 
Corliss  is  a  stretch  of  nearly  twenty  centuries  ;  dur- 
ing which,  probably,  a  thousand  inventive  minds 
have  contributed  to  make  the  steam-engine  the  ex- 
quisite thing  it  is  to-day. 


AN"  OLD  DRY-GOODS  MERCHANT'S 
RECOLLECTIONS. 


Our  great  cities  have  a  new  wonder  of  late 
years.  I  mean  those  immense  dry-goods  stores 
which  we  see  in  Paris,  London,  New  York,  Vienna, 
Boston,  Cincinnati,  Chicago,  in  which  are  displayed 
under  one  roof  almost  all  the  things  worn,  or  used 
for  domestic  purposes,  by  man,  woman,  or  child. 

What  a  splendid  and  cheering  srjectacle  the  in- 
terior presents  on  a  fine,  bright  day  !  The  count- 
ers a  tossing  sea  of  brilliant  fabrics  ;  crowds  of 
ladies  moving  in  all  directions;  the  clerks,  well- 
dressed  and  polite,  exhibiting  their  goods ;  the 
cash-boys  flying  about  with  money  in  one  hand  and 
a  bundle  in  the  other  ;  customers  streaming  in  at 
every  door  :  and  customers  passing  out,  with  the  sat- 
isfied air  of  people  who  have  got  what  they  want. 
It  gives  the  visitor  a  cheerful  idea  of  abundance  to 
see  such  a  provision  of  comfortable  and  pleasant 
things  brought  from  every  quarter  of  the  globe. 

An  old  dry-goods  merchant  of  London,  now 
nearly  ninety,  and  long  ago  retired  from  business 
with  a  large  fortune,  has  given  his  recollections  of 


AN  OLD  MERCHANT'S  RECOLLECTIONS.    393 

business  in  the  good  old  times.  There  is  a  period- 
ical, called  the  "  Draper's  Magazine,"  devoted  to 
the  dry-goods  business,  and  it  is  in  this  that  some 
months  ago  he  told  his  story. 

"When  he  was  a  few  months  past  thirteen,  being 
stout  and  large  for  his  age,  he  was  placed  in  a  Lon- 
don dry-goods  store,  as  boy  of  all  work.  Xo  wages 
were  given  him.  At  that  time  the  clerks  in  stores 
usually  boarded  with  their  enployer.  On  the  first 
night  of  his  service,  when  it  was  time  to  go  to  bed, 
he  was  shown  a  low,  truckle  bedstead,  under  the 
counter,  made  to  pull  out  and  push  in.  He  did 
not  have  even  this  poor  bed  to  himself,  but  shared 
it  with  another  boy  in  the  store.  On  getting  up  in 
the  morning,  instead  of  washing  and  dressing  for 
the  day.  he  was  obliged  to  put  on  some  old  clothes, 
take  down  the  shutters  of  the  store,  —  which  were 
so  heavy  he  could  hardly  carry  them,  —  then  clean 
the  brass  signs  and  the  outside  of  the  shop  win- 
dows, leaving  the  inside  to  be  washed  by  the  older 
clerks.  When  he  had  done  this,  he  was  allowed 
to  go  up  stairs,  wash  himself,  dress  for  the  day, 
and  to  eat  his  breakfast.  Then  he  took  his  place 
behind  the  counter. 

AVe  think  it  wrong  for  boys  under  fourteen  to 
work  ten  hours  a  day.  But  in  the  stores  of  the 
olden  time,  both  bovs  and  men  worked  from  four- 
teen  to  sixteen  hours  a  day,  and  nothing  was 
thought  of  it.  This  store,  for  example,  was  opened 
soon  after  eight  in  the  morning,  and  the  shutters 


894  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

were  not  put  up  till  ten  in  the  evening.  There 
was  much  work  to  do  after  the  store  was  closed ; 
and  the  young  men,  in  fact,  were  usually  released 
from  labor  about  a  quarter  past  eleven.  On  Sat- 
urday nights  the  store  closed  at  twelve  o'clock,  and 
it  was  not  uncommon  for  the  young  men  to  be  em- 
ployed in  putting  away  the  goods  until  between 
two  and  three  on  Sunday  morning. 

"  There  used  to  be,"  the  old  gentleman  records, 
"  a  supper  of  hot  beaf steaks  and  onions,  and  por- 
ter, which  we  boys  used  to  relish  immensely,  and 
eat  and  drink  a  good  deal  more  of  both  than  was 
good  for  us." 

After  such  a  week's  work  one  would  think  the 
clerks  would  have  required  rest  on  Sunday.  But 
they  did  not  get  much.  The  store  was  open  from 
eight  until  church  time,  which  was  then  eleven 
o'clock  ;  and  this  was  one  of  the  most  profitable 
mornings  of  the  week.  The  old  gentleman  ex- 
plains why  it  was  so.  Almost  all  factories,  shops, 
and  stores  were  then  kept  open  very  late,  and  the 
last  thing  done  in  them  was  to  pay  wages,  which 
was  seldom  accomplished  until  after  midnight. 
Hence  the  apparent  necessity  for  the  Sunday  morn- 
ing's business. 

Another  great  evil  mentioned  by  our  chronicler 
grew  out  of  this  bad  system  of  all  work  and  no 
play.  The  clerks,  released  from  business  towards 
midnight,  were  accustomed  to  go  to  a  tavern  and 
spend  part  of  the  night  in  drinking  and  carousing  ; 


AN  OLD  MERCHANT'S  RECOLLECTIONS.    395 

reeling  home  at  a  late  hour,  much  the  worse  for 
drink,  and  unfit  for  business  in  the  morning  until 
they  had  taken  another  glass.  All  day  the  clerks 
were  in  the  habit  of  slipping  out  without  their  hats 
to  the  nearest  tap-room  for  beer. 

Nor  was  the  system  very  different  in  New  York. 
An  aged  book-keeper,  to  whom  I  gave  an  outline  of 
the  old  gentleman's  narrative,  informs  me  that  forty 
years  ago  the  clerks,  as  a  rule,  were  detained  till 
very  late  in  the  evening,  and  often  went  from  the 
store  straight  to  a  drinking-house. 

Xow  let  us  see  how  it  fared  with  the  public  who 
depended  upon  these  stores  for  their  dry-goods. 
From  our  old  gentleman's  account  it  would  seem 
that  every  transaction  was  a  sort  of  battle  betweeu 
the  buyer  and  seller  to  see  which  should  cheat  the 
other.  On  the  first  day  of  his  attendance  he  wit- 
nessed a  specimen  of  the  mode  in  which  a  dexter- 
ous clerk  coidd  sell  an  article  to  a  lady  which  she 
did  not  want.  An  unskillful  clerk  had  displayed 
too  suddenly  the  entire  stock  of  the  goods  of  which 
she  was  in  search;  upon  which  she  rose  to  leave, 
saying  that  there  was  nothing  she  liked.  A  more 
experienced  salesman  then  stepped  up. 

"  Walk  this  way,  madam,  if  you  please,  and  I 
will  show  you  something  entirely  different,  with 
which  I  am  sure  you  will  be  quite  delighted." 

He  took  her  to  the  other  end  of  the  store,  and 
then  going  back  to  the  pile  which  she  had  just 
rejected,  snatched  up  several  pieces,  and  sold  her 


396  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

one  of  theni  almost  immediately.  Customers,  the 
old  merchant  says,  were  often  bullied  into  buying 
things  they  did  not  want. 

"Many  a  half  -  frightened  girl,"  he  remarks, 
"  have  I  seen  go  out  of  the  shop,  the  tears  welling 
up  into  her  eyes,  and  saying,  'I  am  sure  I  shall 
never  like  it : '  some  shawl  or  dress  having  been 
forced  upon  her  contrary  to  her  taste  or  judgment." 

The  new  clerk,  although  by  nature  a  very  honest 
young  fellow,  soon  became  expert  in  all  the  tricks 
of  the  trade.  It  was  the  custom  then  for  employ- 
ers to  allow  clerks  a  reward  for  selling  things  that 
were  particularly  unsalable,  or  which  required  some 
sj^ecial  skill  or  impudence  in  the  seller.  For  ex- 
ample, they  kept  on  hand  a  great  supply  of  what 
they  were  pleased  to  call  "  remnants,"  which  were 
supposed  to  be  sold  very  cheap ;  and  as  the  public 
of  that  day  had  a  passion  for  remnants,  the  master 
of  the  shop  took  care  to  have  them  made  in  suffi- 
cient numbers.  There  were  heaps  of  remnants  of 
linen,  and  it  so  hcqjpened  that  the  remnants  were 
exactly  long  enough  for  a  shirt,  or  some  other  gar- 
ment. Any  clerk  who  could  push  off  one  of  these 
remnants  upon  a  customer  was  allowed  a  penny  or 
twopence  as  a  reward  for  his  talent ;  and  there 
were  certain  costly  articles,  such  as  shawls  and 
silks  of  unsalable  patterns,  upon  which  there  was  a 
premium  of  several  shillings  for  selling. 

There  was  one  frightfully  ugly  shawl  which  had 
hung  fire  so  long  that  the  master  of  the  shop  of- 


AN  OLD  MERCHANT'S  RECOLLECTIONS.    397 

fered  a  reward  of  eight  shillings  (two  dollars)  to 
airy  one  who  should  sell  it  at  the  full  price,  which 
was  twenty  dollars.  Our  lad  covered  himself  with 
glory  one  morning,  by  selling  this  horrid  old  thing. 
A  sailor  came  in  to  buy  a  satin  scarf  for  a  .present. 
The  boy  saw  his  chance. 

"  As  you  want  something  for  a  present,"  said  he 
to  the  sailor,  "would  you  not  like  to  give  some- 
thing really  useful  and  valuable  that  woidd  last 
for  years?  " 

In  three  minutes  the  sailor  was  walking  out  of 
the  store,  happy  enough,  with  the  shawl  under  his 
arm,  and  the  sharp  youth  was  depositing  the  price 
thereof  in  the  money-drawer.  Very  soon  he  had 
an  opportunity  of  assisting  to  gull  the  public  on  a 
great  scale.  His  employer  bought  out  the  stock  of 
an  old-fashioned  dry-goods  store  in  another  part  of 
the  town  for  a  small  sum  ;  upon  which  he  deter- 
mined to  have  a  grand  "  selling  off."  To  this  end 
he  filled  the  old  shop  with  all  his  old,  faded,  un- 
salable goods,  besides  looking  around  among  the 
wholesale  houses  and  picking  up  several  cart-loads 
of  cheap  lots,  more  or  less  damaged. 

The  whole  town  was  flooded  with  bills  announc- 
ing this  selling  off  of  the  old  established  store,  at 
which  many  goods  could  be  obtained  at  less  than 
half  the  original  cost.  As  this  was  then  a  com- 
paratively  new  trick  the  public  were  deceived  by  it, 
and  it  had  the  most  astonishing  success.  The  sell- 
ing off  lasted  several  weeks,  the  supply  of  goods 
being  kept  up  by  daily  purchases. 


398  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY. 

Our  junior  clerk  was  an  apt  learner  in  deception 
and  trickery.  Shortly  after  this  experiment  upon 
the  public  credulity,  a  careless  boy  lighting  the 
lamps  in  the  window  (for  this  was  before  the  in- 
troduction of  gas)  set  some  netting  on  fire,  causing 
a  damage  of  a  few  shillings,  the  fire  being  almost 
instantly  extinguished.  As  business  had  been  a 
little  dull,  the  junior  clerk  conceived  the  idea  of 
turning  the  conflagration  to  account.  Going  up 
to  his  employer,  and  pointing  to  the  singed  articles, 
he  said  to  him  :  — 

"  Why  not  have  a  selling  off  here,  and  clear  out 
all  the  stock  damaged  by  fire  ?  " 

The  master  laughed  at  the  enormity  of  the  joke, 
but  instantly  adopted  the  suggestion,  and  in  the 
course  of  a  day  or  two,  flaming  posters  announced 
the  awful  disaster  and  the  sale.  In  preparing  for 
this  event,  the  clerks  applied  lighted  paper  to  the 
edges  of  whole  stacks  of  goods,  slightly  discolored 
the  tops  of  stockings,  and  in  fact,  they  smged  to 
such  an  extent  as  almost  to  cause  a  real  conflagra- 
tion. During  these  night  operations  a  great  deal 
of  beer  was  consumed,  and  the  whole  effect  of  the 
manoeuvre  was  injurious  and  demoralizing  to  every 
clerk  in  the  store. 

This  sale  also  was  ridiculously  successful.  A 
mob  surrounded  the  doors  before  they  were  opened, 
and  to  keep  up  the  excitement  some  low-priced 
goods  were  ostentatiously  sold  much  below  cost. 
Such  was  the  rush  of  customers  that  at  noon  the 


AN  OLD  MERCHANT'S  RECOLLECTIONS.    399 

young  men  were  exhausted  by  the  labor  of  selling ; 
the  counters  were  a  mere  litter  of  tumbled  dry- 
goods  ;  and  the  shop  had  to  be  closed  for  a  while 
for  rest  and  putting  things  in  order.  To  keep  up 
the  excitement,  the  master  and  his  favorite  junior 
clerk  rode  about  London  in  hackney  coaches,  in 
search  of  any  cheap  lots  that  would  answer  their 
purpose. 

In  the  course  of  time,  this  clerk,  who  was  at  heart 
an  honest,  well-principled  fellow,  grew  ashamed  of 
all  this  trickery  and  fraud,  and  when  at  length 
he  set  up  in  business  for  himself,  he  adopted  the 
principle  of  "  one  price  and  no  abatement."  He 
dealt  honorably  with  all  his  customers,  and  thus 
founded  one  of  the  great  dry-goods  houses  of  Lon- 
don. 

Two  things  saved  him  :  first,  he  loathed  drinking 
and  debauchery ;  secondly,  he  was  in  the  habit  of 
reading. 

The  building  up  of  the  huge  establishments,  to 
which  some  persons  object,  has  nearly  put  an  end 
to  the  old  system  of  guzzling,  cheating,  and  lying. 
The  clerks  in  these  great  stores  go  to  business  at 
eight  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  leave  at  six  in  the 
evening,  with  an  interval  for  dinner.  They  work 
all  day  in  a  clean  and  pleasant  place,  and  they  are 
neither  required  or  allowed  to  lie  or  cheat.  A  very 
large  establishment  must  be  conducted  honestly,  or 
it  cannot  long  go  on.  Its  very  largeness  compels 
an  adherence  to  truth  and  fact. 


American  Statesmen. 

A  Series   of  Biographies   of  Ale  ft   co?ispicnous  iti   the 
Political  History  of  the  United  States. 

EDITED   BY 

JOHN  T.  MORSE,  Jr. 


The  object  of  this  series  is  not  merely  to  give  a 
number  of  unconnected  narratives  of  men  in  Ameri- 
can political  life,  but  to  produce  books  which  shall, 
when  taken  together,  indicate  •  the  lines  of  political 
thought  and  development  in  American  history,  — 
books  embodying  in  compact  form  the  result  of  ex- 
tensive study  of  the  many  and  diverse  influences 
which  have  combined  to  shape  the  political  history  of 
our  country. 

The  series  is  under  the  editorship  of  Mr.  John  T. 
Morse,  Jr.,  whose  historical  and  biographical  writings 
give  ample  assurance  of  his  special  fitness  for  this 
task.     The  volumes  now  ready  are  as  follows:  — 

John  Quincy  Adams.     By  John  T.  Morse,  Jr. 
Alexander  Hamilton.     By  Henry  Cabot  Lodge. 
John  C.  Calhoun.     By  Dr.  H.  von  Holst. 
Afidrew  Jackson.     By  Prof.  W.  G.  Sumner. 
John  Randolph.     By  Henry  Adams. 
James  Monroe.     By  Pres.  Daniel  C.  Gilman. 
Thomas  Jefferson.     By  John  T.  Morse,  Jr. 
Daniel  Webster.     By  Henry  Cabot  Lodge. 
Albert  Gallatin.     By  John  Austin  Stevens. 

IN  PREPARATION. 
John  Adams.     By  John  T.  Morse,  Jr. 
James  Madison.     By  Sidney  Howard  Gay. 
Henry  Clay.     By  Hon.  Carl  Schurz. 
Samuel  Adams.     By  John  Fiske. 
Martin  Van  Buren.     By  Hon.  William  Dorsheimer. 

Others  to  be  announced  hereafter.  Each  biography 
occupies  a  single  volume,  161110,  gilt  top.    Price  #1.25. 


ESTIMATES    OF   THE    PRESS. 


"JOHN    QUINCY   ADAMS." 

That  Mr.  Morse's  conclusions  will  in  the  main  be  those  of 
posterity  we  have  very  little  doubt,  and  he  has  set  an  admirable 
example  to  his  coadjutors  in  respect  of  interesting  narrative, 
just  proportion,  and  judicial  candor.  — New  York  Evening  Post. 

The  work  is  done  in  a  vigorous  and  every  way  admirable 
manner,  which  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  touches  the  high  mark 
of  impartial  but  appreciative  history.  —  Independent  (New 
York). 

Mr.  Morse  has  written  closely,  compactly,  intelligently,  fear- 
lessly, honestly.  —  New  York  Times. 


"ALEXANDER  HAMILTON." 
The  biography  of  Mr.  Lodge  is  calm  and  dignified  through- 
out. He  has  the  virtue  —  rare  indeed  among  biographers  — 
of  impartiality.  He  has  done  his  work  with  conscientious  care, 
and  the  biography  of  Hamilton  is  a  book  which  cannot  have 
too  many  readers.  It  is  more  than  a  biography  ;  it  is  a  study 
in  the  science  of  government.  —  St.  Paid  Pioneer-Press. 

Mr.  Lodge's  portrait  of  Hamilton  is  carefully,  impartially,  and 
skilfully  painted,  and  his  study  of  the  epoch  in  which  Hamil- 
ton was  dominant  is  luminous  and  comprehensive. — Philadel- 
phia North  Ai7ierican. 


"JOHN   C.   CALHOUN." 

Dr.  von  Hoist's  volume  is  certainly  not  the  least  valuable  of 
the  three  that  constitute  the  series,  so  far  as  it  has  at  present 
progressed  ;  and  of  the  series,  as  a  whole,  it  may  be  said  that 
if  the  succeeding  volumes  are  of  the  same  high  order  of  excel- 
lence as  those  that  have  already  appeared  they  will  serve  a 
valuable  purpose,  not  only  as  exemplifying  American  statesmen, 
but  as  a  means  of  training  in  statesmanship.  —  Boston  Journal. 

Nothing  can  exceed  the  skill  with  which  the  political  career 
of  the  great  South  Carolinian  is  portrayed  in  these  pages.  The 
work  is  superior  to  any  other  number  of  the  series  thus  far,  and 
we  do  not  think  it  can  be  surpassed  by  any  of  those  that  are  to 
come.  The  whole  discussion  in  relation  to  Calhoun's  position 
is  eminently  philosophical  and  just. —  The  Dial  (Chicago). 


"ANDREW   JACKSON." 

Prof.  Sumner  has  written  what  we  think  may  rightly  be  called 
an  impartial  life  of  perhaps  the  strongest  personality  that  was 
ever  elected  President,  and  yet  he  has  not  made  his  story  dull. 
He  has,  ...  all  in  all,  made  the  justest  long  estimate  of  Jackson 
that  has  had  itself  put  between  the  covers  of  a  book.  —  New 
York  Times. 

Professor  Sumner's  account  and  estimate  of  Andrew  Jackson 
as  a  statesman  is  one  of  the  most  masterly  monographs  that  we 
have  ever  had  the  pleasure  of  reading.  It  is  calm  and  clear.  — 
Providence  Journal. 

A  book  of  exceptional  value  to  students  of  politics.  —  Con- 
gregationalist  (Boston). 

"JOHN    RANDOLPH." 

The  book  has  been  to  me  intensely  interesting.  I  have  been 
especially  struck  by  the  literary  and  historical  merit  of  the  first 
two  chapters  :  they  are  terse  ;  full  of  picture,  suggestion,  life  ; 
with  fine  strokes  of  satire  and  humor.  The  book  is  rich  in  new 
facts  and  side  lights,  and  is  worthy  of  its  place  in  the  already 
brilliant  series  of  monographs  on  American  Statesmen.  I 
heartily  congratulate  Mr.  Morse  over  the  solid  success  the  series 
has  already  won.  —  Prof.  Moses  Coit  Tyler. 

Remarkably  interesting.  .  .  .  The  biography  has  all  the  ele- 
ments of  popularity,  and  cannot  fail  to  be  widely  read.  —  Hart- 
ford Courant. 

A  most  lively  and  interesting  volume.  —  New  York  Tribune. 


"JAMES    MONROE." 

In  clearness  of  style,  and  in  all  points  of  literary  workman- 
ship, from  cover  to  cover,  the  volume  is  well-nigh  perfect. 
There  is  also  a  calmness  of  judgment,  a  correctness  of  taste, 
and  an  absence  of  partisanship  which  are  too  frequently  want- 
ing in  biographies,  and  especially  in  political  biographies.  — 
American  Literary  Churchman  (Baltimore). 

At  last  the  character  of  this  distinguished  statesman  has  re- 
ceived justice  at  the  hands  of  the  historian.  His  biographer 
has  written  the  most  satisfactory  account  of  the  life  of  this  il- 
lustrious man  which  has  been  given  the  country.  —  San  Fran- 
cisco Bulletin. 

A  volume  which  gives  an  excellent  and  well-proportioned 
outline  of  the  eminent  statesman's  career.  —  Boston  Journal. 


"THOMAS  JEFFERSON." 
The  requirements  of  political  biography  have  rarely  been  met 
so  satisfactorily  as  in  this  memoir  of  Jefferson.  .  .  .  Mr.  Morse 
has  shown  himself  amply  competent  for  the  task,  and  he  has 
given  us  a  singularly  just,  well-proportioned  and  interesting 
sketch  of  the  personal  and  political  >career  of  the  author  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  —  Boston  Journal- 

The  book  is  exceedingly  interesting  and  readable.  The  at- 
tention of  the  reader  is  strongly  seized  at  once,  and  he  is  carried 
along  in  spite  of  himself,  sometimes  protesting,  sometimes 
doubting,  yet  unable  to  lay  the  book  down.  —  Chicago  Standard. 


"DANIEL   WEBSTER." 

The  massiveness  of  Mr.  Lodge's  subject,  the  compass  and 
high  significance  of  many  of  the  single  themes  with  which  he 
has  had  to  labor,  and  the  voluminous  amount  of  the  material 
requiring  his  critical  study  would  seem  to  have  demanded  a 
singular  skill  of  compression  in  bringing  the  results  within  this 
small  volume.  Yet  the  task  has  been  achieved  ably,  admirably, 
and  faithfully.  —  Boston  Transcript. 

It  will  be  read  by  students  of  history  ;  it  will  be  invaluable  as 
a  work  of  reference  ;  it  will  be  an  authority  as  regards  matters 
of  fact  and  criticism  ;  it  hits  the  key-note  of  Webster's  durable 
and  ever-growing  fame  ;  it  is  adequate,  calm,  impartial ;  it  is 
admirable.  —  Philadelphia  Press. 


"ALBERT   GALLATIN." 

The  greater  part  of  Mr.  Stevens's  frank,  simple,  and  straight- 
forward book  is  devoted  to  a  careful  narrative  of  Gallatin's 
financial  administration,  and  next  in  importance  to  this  is  the 
excellent  chapter  devoted  to  Gallatin's  brilliant  diplomatic  ser- 
vices. The  study  of  an  honorable  and  attractive  character  is 
completed  by  some  interesting  pages  of  personal  and  domestic 
historv.  —  New  York  Tribune. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  carefully  prepared  of  these  very  valu- 
able volumes,  .  .  .  abounding  in  information  not  so  readily  ac- 
cessible as  is  that  pertaining  to  men  more  often  treated  by  the 
biographer.  .  .  .  The  whole  work  covers  a  ground  which  the 
political  "student  cannot  afford  to  neglect.  —  Boston  Correspon- 
dent Hartford  Courant. 

*#*  For  sate  by  all  Booksellers.     Sent  by  mail,  post-paid,  on  receipt  of 
price  by  the  Publishers, 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY,  Boston. 


American  JHen  of  betters; 

EDITED   BY 

CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER. 


A  series  of  biographies  of  distinguished  American 
authors,  having  all  the  special  interest  of  biography, 
and  the  larger  interest  and  value  of  illustrating  the 
different  phases  of  American  literature,  the  social, 
political,  and  moral  influences  which  have  moulded 
these  authors  and  the  generations  to  which  they  be- 
longed. 

This  series  when  completed  will  form  an  admi- 
rable survey  of  all  that  is  important  and  of  historical 
influence  in  American  literature,  and  will  itself  be  a 
creditable  representation  of  the  literary  and  critical 
ability  of  America  to-day. 


Washington  Irving.    By  Charles  Dudley  Warner. 
Noah  Webster.    By  Horace  E.  Scudder. 
Henry  D.  Thoreau.     By  Frank  B.  Sanborn. 
George  Ripley.    By  Octavius  Brooks  Frothingham. 
y.  Fenimore  Cooper.     By  Prof.  T.  R.  Lounsbury. 
Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli.     By  T.  W.  Higginson. 

IN  PREPARA  Tl'ON. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.    By  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 
Edgar  Alla7i  Poe.     By  George  E.  Woodberry. 
Edmund  Quincy.     By  Sidney  Howard  Gay. 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne.     By  James  Russell  Lowell. 
William  Cullen  Bryant.     By  John  Bigelow. 
Bayard  Taylor.     By  J.  R.  G.  Hassard. 
William  Gilmore  Simms.     By  George  W.  Cable. 
Benjamin  Franklin.     By  John  Bach  McMaster. 

Others  to  be  announced  hereafter. 

Each  volume,  with  Portrait,  i6mo,  gilt  top,  $1.25. 


"WASHINGTON    IRVING." 

Mr.  Warner  has  not  only  written  with  sympathy,  minute 
knowledge  of  his  subject,  fine  literary  taste,  and  that  easy, 
fascinating  style  which  always  puts  him  on  such  good 
terms  with  his  readers,  but  he  has  shown  a  tact,  critical 
sagacity,  and  sense  of  proportion  full  of  promise  for  the 
rest  of  the  series  which  is  to  pass  under  his  supervision. 

—  Areiv  York  T?'ibune. 

Mr.  Charles  Dudley  Warner  has  made  an  admirable 
biography  of  Washington  Irving,  and  his  critical  estimate 
of  the  man  and  the  writer  is  unbiased,  well  weighed,  and 
accurate.  —  Philadelphia  Press. 

It  is  a  very  charming  piece  of  literary  work,  and  pre- 
sents the  reader  with  an  excellent  picture  of  Irving  as  a 
man  and  of  his  methods  as  an  author,  together  with  an 
accurate  and  discriminating  characterization  of  his  works. 

—  Boston  Jou?'?ial. 

It  would  hardly  be  possible  to  produce  a  fairer  or  more 
candid  book  of  its  kind.  — Literary  World  (London). 


"NOAH    WEBSTER." 

Mr.  Scudder's  biography  of  Webster  is  alike  honorable 
to  himself  and  its  subject.  Finely  discriminating  in  all 
that  relates  to  personal  and  intellectual  character,  schol- 
arly and  just  in  its  literary  criticisms,  analyses,  and  esti- 
mates, it  is  besides  so  kiDdly  and  manly  in  its  tone,  its 
narrative  is  so  spirited  and  enthralling,  its  descriptions 
are  so  quaintly  graphic,  so  varied  and  cheerful  in  their 
coloring,  and  its  pictures  so  teem  with  the  bustle,  the 
movement,  and  the  activities  of  the  real  life  of  a  by-gone 
but  most  interesting  age,  that  the  attention  of  the  reader 
is  never  tempted  to  wander,  and  he  lays  down  the  book 
with  a  sigh  of  regret  for  its  brevity.  — Harper's  Monthly 
Magazine. 

Mr.  Scudder  has  done  his  work  with  characteristic 
thoroughness  and  fidelity  to  facts,  and  has  not  spared 
those  fine,  unobtrusive  charms  of  style  and  humor  which 
give  him  a  place  among  our  best  writers.  —  Christian 
Union  (New  York). 

This  little  volume  is  a  scholarly,  painstaking,  and  intel- 
ligent account  of  a  singularly  unique  career.  In  a  purely 
literary  point  of  view  it  is  a  surprisingly  good  piece  of 
work.  —  New  York  Times. 

It  fills  completely  its  place  in  the  purpose  of  this  se- 
ries of  volumes. —  The  Critic  (New  York). 


"HENRY  D.  THOREAU." 

Mr.  Sanborn's  book  is  thoroughly  American  and  truly 
fascinating.  Its  literary  skill  is  exceptionally  good,  and 
there  is  a  racy  flavor  in  i^s  pages  and  an  amount  of  ex- 
act knowledge  of  interesting  people  that  one  seldom  meets 
with  in  current  literature.  Mr.  Sanborn  has  done  Tho- 
reau's  genius  an  imperishable  service. — American  Church 
Review  (New  York). 

Mr.  Sanborn  has  accomplished  his  difficult  task  with  * 
much  ability.  .  .  .  He  has  told  in  an  entertaining  and 
luminous  way  the  strange  story  of  Thoreau's  remarkable 
career,  and  has  expounded  with  much  appreciative  sym- 
pathy and  analytical  power  the  moral  and  intellectual 
idiosyncrasies  of  the  most  striking  and  original  figure  in 
American  literature.  — Philadelphia  North  Aniericati. 

Mr.  Sanborn  has  written  a  careful  book  about  a  curious 
man,  whom  he  has  studied  as  impartially  as  possible  ; 
whom  he  admires  warmly  but  with  discretion ;  and  the 
story  of  whose  life  he  has  told  with  commendable  frank- 
ness and  simplicity. — New  York  Mail  and  Express. 

It  is  undoubtedly  the  best  life  of  Thoreau  extant. — 
Christian  Advocate  (New  York). 


"GEORGE  RIPLEY." 

Mr.  Frothingham's  memoir  is  a  calm  and  thoughtful 
and  tender  tribute.  It  is  marked  by  rare  discrimination, 
and  good  taste  and  simplicity.  The  biographer  keeps 
himself  in  the  background,  and  lets  his  subject  speak. 
And  the  result  is  one  of  the  best  examples  of  personal 
portraiture  that  we  have  met  with  in  a  long  time.  —  The 
Churchman  (New  York). 

He  has  fulfilled  his  responsible  task  with  admirable 
fidelity,  frank  earnestness,  justice,  fine  feeling,  balanced 
moderation,  delicate  taste,  and  finished  literary  skill.  It 
is  a  beautiful  tribute  to  the  high-bred  scholar  and  gener- 
ous-hearted man,  whose  friend  he  has  so  worthily  por- 
trayed.—  Rev.  William  H.  Channing  (London). 

Mr.  Frothingham  has  made  a  very  interesting  and  val- 
uable memoir,  and  one  that  can  be  read  with  profit  by  all 
aspirants  for  recognition  in  the  world  of  letters.  He 
writes  affectionately  and  admiringly,  though  temperately. 
—  Chicago  Journal. 

It  is  a  valuable  addition  to  our  literature.  The  work 
was  committed  to  a  skilled  hand,  and  it  is  executed  with 
the  delicacy  of  perception  and  treatment  which  the  sub- 
ject required.  —  Charleston  News  and  Courier. 


"JAMES    FENIMORE    COOPER." 

We  have  here  a  model  biography.  We  venture  to  believe 
that  the  accuracy  of  its  statements  will  not  be  challenged, 
its  absolute  impartiality -will  nqt  be  questioned,  the  sense 
of  literary  proportion  in  the  use  of  material  will  be  ap- 
preciated by  all  who  are  capable  of  judging,  the  critical 
acumen  will  be  intensely  relished,  and  to  the  mass  of 
readers  who  care  little  for  facts,  or  impartiality,  or  literary 
form,  or  criticism,  the  story  of  the  life  will  have  some- 
thing of  the  fascination  of  one  of  the  author's  own  ro- 
mances. For  the  book  is  charmingly  written,  with  a  felic- 
ity and  vigor  of  diction  that  are  notable,  and  with  a  humor 
sparkling,  racy,  and  never  obtrusive.  —  New  York  Tribune. 

Prof.  Lounsbury's  book  is  an  admirable  specimen  of. 
literary  biography.  .  .  .  We  can  recall  no  recent  addition  to 
American  biography  in  any  department  which  is  superior 
to  it.  It  gives  the  reader  not  merely  a  full  account  of  Coo- 
per's literary  career,  but  there  is  mingled  with  this  a  suffi- 
cient account  of  the  man  himself  apart  from  his  books,  and 
of  the  period  in  which  he  lived,  to  keep  alive  the  interest 
from  the  first  word  to  the  last.  —  New  York  Evening  Post. 

Those  who  are  not  familiar  with  Prof.  Lounsbury  as  an 
author  will  be  surprised  to  find  how  well  he  writes.  His 
style  is  admirable, — clear,  pure,  animated,  and  especially 
marked  by  the  quality  known  best  to  the  general  reader  as 
readable.  He  tells  the  story  of  Cooper's  life  with  an  in- 
terest that  never  flags,  and  he  invests  it  with  an  attraction 
that  few  would  have  supposed  it  to  possess. —  Boston  Ga- 
zette. 

*#*  For  sale  by  all  Booksellers.  Sent  by  mail,  post-paid,  on  re- 
ceipt of  price  by  the  Publishers, 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO.,  Boston,  Mass.  % 


American  Commontoealtfjs. 


Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Company 
take  pleasure  in  announcing  that  they  have  ar- 
ranged to  publish  a  series  of  volumes  entitled 
American  Commonwealths,  under  the  editor- 
ship of  Mr.  Horace  E.  Scudder.  It  is  not  pro- 
posed to  give  in  detail  the  formal  annals  of  each 
member  of  the  Union,  but  to  sketch  rapidly  and 
forcibly  the  lives  of  those  States  which. have  had 
marked  influence  upon  the  structure  of  the  nation, 
or  have  embodied  in  their  formation  and  growth 
principles  of  American  polity. 

In  the  case  of  the  older  commonwealths,  which 
owe  their  origin  to  European  colonization  in  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  an  attempt 
will  be  made  to  trace  institutions,  laws,  and  per- 
sonal influences  ;  to  characterize  the  people  wrho 
worked  out  the  problems  of  society  ;  and  to  follow 
the  development  of  state  life,  both  in  the  colonial 
and  in  the  federal  periods. 

The  migration  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific 
will  be  studied  in  the  records  of  the  several  com- 
monwealths which  have  registered  that  migration 
and  added  their  characteristics  to  the  national 
type.  The  romance  of  their  early  history ;  the  ad- 
venture and  foresight  of  their  founders ;  the  appli- 
cation of  principles  of  government  formulated  in 
the  older  communities ;  the  contributions  made 
by  the  European  colonists  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury ;  and  the  material  conditions  of  growth  will 
receive  close  attention. 


The  commonwealth  has  always  been  a  positive 
force  in  American  history,  and  it  is  believed  that 
no  better  time  could  be  found  for  a  statement  of 
the  life  inherent  in  the  States  than  when  the  unity 
of  the  nation  has  been  assured;  and  it  is  hoped  by 
this  means  to  throw  new  light  upon  the  develop- 
ment of  the  country,  and  to  give  a  fresh  point  of 
view  for  the  study  of  American  history. 

The  aim  of  the  Editor  will  be  to  secure  trust- 
worthy and  graphic  narratives,  which  shall  have 
substantial  value  as  historical  monographs  and  at 
the  same  time  do  full  justice  to  the  picturesque 
elements  of  the  subjects.  The  volumes  will  be 
uniform  in  size  and  general  style  with  the  series 
of  American  Statesmen  and  American  Men  of 
Letters,  and  will  be  furnished  with  maps,  indexes, 
and  such  brief  critical  apparatus  as  may  in  any 
case  add  to  the  thoroughness  of  the  work. 

The  series,  so  far  as  arranged,  comprises  the 
following  volumes. 

NOW  READY. 

Virginia.  A  History  of  the  People.  By  John  Esten 
Cooke,  author  of  "  The  Virginian  Comedians,"  "  Life  of 
Stonewall  Jackson,"  "  Life  of  General  Robert  E.  Lee," 
etc. 

Oregon.  The  Struggle  for  Possession.  By  William 
Barrows,  D.  D. 

IN  PREPARA  TION 

Pennsylvania.  By  Hon.  Wayne  McVeagh,  late  Attorney- 
General  of  the  United  States. 

South  Carolina.  By  Hon.  William  H.  Trescot,  au- 
thor of  "  The  Diplomacy  of  the  American  Revolution." 

Maryland.  By  William  Hand  Browne,  Associate  of 
Johns  Hopkins  University. 

Kentucky.  By  Nathaniel  Southgate  Shaler,  S.  D., 
Professor  of  Palaeontology,  Harvard  University,  recently 
Director  of  the  Kentucky  State  Survey. 


VIRGINIA. 

A    HISTORY  OF  THE   PEOPLE. 

BY 

JOHN  ESTEN  COOKE. 

i  vol.  i6mo,  with  Map  of  Colonial  Virginia;  pp. 
xxi.,  523.     Cloth,  gilt  top,  $1.25. 


Mr.  Cooke  brings  to  this  work  a  familiar  and 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the  literature  of  his 
subject,  a  hearty  attachment  to  the  soil  of  his  na- 
tive State,  and  an  admirable  gift  of  narrative.  It 
is  fitting  that  the  series  should  be  introduced  by 
a  narrative  of  this  commonwealth,  and  readers  of 
the  story  of  American  history  will  find  that  which 
relates  to  Virginia  told  now  for  the  first  time  by 
a  literary  artist. 

"  It  is  easy  to  see  that  he  has  written  out  of  a 
love  as  well  as  a  knowledge  of  his  subject. 
Everywhere  there  are  touches  impossible  to  any 
one  not  native  to  the  soil.  .  .  .  It  is  by  this  fa- 
miliar acquaintance  with  localities,  a  familiarity 
which  reading  cannot  give,  that  a  historian  is 
able  to  give  warmth  to  his  narrative  and  bring 
the  scenes  near  to  the  eye.  Mr.  Cooke  has 
availed  himself  of  this  knowledge  of  the  country 
in  the  most  natural  manner,  and  since  Virginia, 
especially  in  its  formative  period,  was  a  country 
of  neighborhoods,  a  writer  who  recognizes  the  fact 
is  able  to  reproduce  in  his  pages  some  of  the 
most  interesting  features  of  the  life  which  he  is 
recording.  .  .  .  The  vitality,  however,  in  his  work 
lies  in  the  application  of  imagination  to  historical 
writing."  —  Atlantic  Monthly. 


American  ^tateismett* 

Edited  by  John  T.  Morse,  Jr.     Each  I  vol.,  i6mo,  cloth, 
gilt  top,  $1.25. 

NOW  READY. 

John  Quincy  Adams.     By  John  T.  Morse,  Jr. 
Alexander  Hamilton.     By  Henry  Cabot  Lodge. 
John  C.  Calhoun.     By  Dr.  H.  von  Holst. 
Andrew  Jackson.     By  Prof.  W.  G.  Sumner. 
John  Randolph.     By  Henry  Adams. 
Thomas  Jefferson.     By  John  T.  Morse,  Jr. 
James  Monroe.     By  Pres.  D.  C.  Gilman. 
Daniel  Webster.     By  Henry  Cabot  Lodge. 
Albert  Gallatin.    By  John  Austin  Stevens. 

IN  PREPARATION. 

James  Madison.     By  Sidney  Howard  Gay. 
Patrick  Henry.     By  Prof.  Moses  Coit  Tyler. 
Henry  Clay.     By  Carl  Schurz. 

Others  to  be  announced  later. 


american  fetzw  of  Letters 

Edited  by  Charles  Dudley  Warner.    Each  1  vol.,  i6mo, 
cloth,  gilt  top.     With  a  Steel  Portrait.     $1.25. 

NOW  READY. 

Washington  Irving.     By  Charles  Dudley  Warner. 
Noah  Webster.     By  Horace  E.  Scudder. 
Henry  D.  Thoreau.     By  Frank  B.  Sanborn. 
George  Ripley.     By  Octavius  B.  Frothingham. 
J.  Fenimore  Cooper.     By  Prof.  T.  R.  Lounsbury. 

IN  PREPARA  TION 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.   By  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne.     By  James  Russell  Lowell. 
Margaret  Fuller.   By  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson. 
Edmund  Quincy.     By  Sidney  Howard  Gay. 
William  Cullen  Bryant.     By  John  Bigelow. 
Bayard  Taylor.     Bv  John  R.  G.  Hassard. 
William  Gilmore  Simms.     By  George  W.  Cable. 
Benjamin  Franklin.     By  John  Bach  McMaster. 
Edgar  Allan  Poe.     By  George  L.  Woodberry. 

Others  to  be  annouiiced  later. 

BOSTON 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND    COMPANY 

New  York:  11  East  Seventeenth  Street 


920 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 


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